


The Art of Repainting

by LaughingSenselessly



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bellarke, Childhood Friends, Exes, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-13 14:45:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14750868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaughingSenselessly/pseuds/LaughingSenselessly
Summary: Bellamy raises his eyebrows at her flirtatious hand on his arm. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”Clarke's smile becomes razor sharp, but doesn’t drop. “My mom’s watching us.” Bellamy looks over her head. “To your nine o’clock.” He casually surveys the room and indeed, he spots the bride of the day approaching them in her resplendent dress.Bellamy looks back at Clarke. “You still haven’t told her we broke up?”--Modern AU.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> so, here's the deal. several months ago, I was taking drabble prompts over on my tumblr and my friend [alice](http://twitter.com/bellamehblake) asked for bellarke + angsty exes. I wrote the drabble… and got lots of people asking for a part two. i didn't know whether i was actually ever going to write that sequel, but i tucked the idea away for later. 
> 
> last week, i very suddenly stumbled across the inspiration for that part two, and im almost done it now (I have to finish the ending, edit it, and get some beta reader eyes on it). i figured in the meantime, i would post this original drabble that inspired the story as the prologue, to get anyone who's new up to speed. so that when i post the rest of the story (much longer than a drabble lol) we’re hopefully all on the same page. here it is!

Bellamy’s standing by the bar at the wedding reception, lost in thought, when he feels a hand curl around his bicep.

He glances to the side, startled, only to see none other than his ex-girlfriend Clarke Griffin standing there, batting her big blue eyes at him. And his first reaction, despite the fact that they’ve been estranged for two years, is overwhelming fondness.

Outwardly, he raises his eyebrows at her flirtatious hand on his arm and without preamble says, “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

Her smile becomes razor sharp, but doesn’t drop. “My mom’s watching us.” Bellamy looks over her head. “To your nine o’clock.” He casually surveys the room and indeed, he spots the bride of the day approaching them in her resplendent green dress.

Bellamy looks back at Clarke. “You still haven’t told her we broke up?”

“No,” she hisses at his tone. “You know she likes you, for some reason.”

He ignores the barb. “Aren’t you dating someone right now?”

Abby Griffin gets within earshot before she can answer. “Bellamy,” she says warmly. “I’m so glad you could take the time off work to come for the wedding.”

He tries to make his returning smile genuine. Abby had taken years to warm up to him initially when he and Clarke started dating after high school, but once she did, she saw him like a son. However, it still puts him off a bit that she likes him. Especially with the fact that her daughter doesn’t, anymore.

“I couldn’t miss it,” he ends up replying, tugging on his collar. Clarke’s hand tightens on his arm as a warning; she recognizes the action as one of his nervous ticks. He drops his hand. “Besides, I’m here for Kane too.”

“Still.” Abby beams. “It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve seen you! Clarke hasn’t brought you around since… well…” Her smile falters a bit. They all remember when Abby was on trial for the murder of her own husband; it had been high profile news back in the day, and the media had loved blowing up the drama of two married lawmakers. Luckily, the evidence had been shown to be weak and the charges dropped, but not before much heartache in the Griffin family.

Clarke presses against Bellamy’s side. “He’s here now.” Automatically, Bellamy turns and presses a kiss against Clarke’s hair, quick and chaste.

Abby’s smile returns. “It’s so wonderful to see you two still in love after all these years.” The glint in her eye turns mischievous at her daughter. “Who knows, maybe we’ll all be attending your wedding next.”

“I doubt it,” Bellamy says.

“What?”

“He said he doesn’t doubt it,” Clarke says smoothly, voice light. “I’m just waiting for him to propose.”

“What are you waiting for?” Abby laughs, giving Bellamy a glance.

He wraps his arm around Clarke’s waist. “The opportune moment,” he replies. A pang in his gut at the thought of a moment which will never come. It’s at least half his fault. The other half is Clarke’s boyfriend, the son of another high profile lawmaker.

Who isn’t here. Bellamy wishes he didn’t feel a bit of smugness about that.

“Let’s hope that moment comes soon,” Abby says with a wink, and just then someone taps on her shoulder, and she whirls around to be carried into another conversation. Bellamy settles back against the bar, expecting Clarke to leave. She doesn’t yet. She doesn’t let go of him.

He finds he doesn’t want to let go of her, either. At least right now, with the two of them leaning against the bar people-watching on this warm summer night, he can pretend that things are alright between them.

He takes a moment to side-eye her. She looks beautiful as always, wrapped up in a black dress hugging her curves, and her blonde waves hanging in ringlets framing her face. 

“Your mom looks happy,” he says, when she notices him looking.

Clarke leans against his chest. He can hear the joy in her voice. “I think she _is_ happy. After everything that happened, with dad and the trial and all that… I wasn’t sure she’d be okay again.” Her voice sounds a little unsteady suddenly, and he runs a comforting hand up and down her side. It had been rough for her too. “But… Kane helped her through it. “

“Good.” He clears his throat, offering her a side-glance. “Are you?”

She turns her face up to look at him. “Am I what?”

“Happy.” He sounds gruff even to his own ears.

She stares at him. “My mom’s with me, instead of in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. She’s moved on with someone she loves. Why shouldn’t I be?”

It doesn’t sound like a rhetorical question. Her gaze is far too meaningful. He looks away, swirling the amber liquid in his glass.

Clarke’s not done. “Where’s your plus-one?”

Her way of asking if he’s dating anyone. “Don’t have one.” She seems to relax. He debates asking what he asks next, but oh, to hell with it, he’s curious too. “Where’s your boyfriend? Couldn’t make it, or didn’t invite him?”

Clarke shoots a glare at him and disentangles herself from him to ask for a drink from the bartender. When she returns, he says, “When are you going to tell your mom you’re dating someone new? Or are you just going to invite her to your wedding and say ‘surprise’?”

Clarke’s cheeks flush. “We’re not getting married. We’re barely even dating. Not even his dad knows yet.”

“Well, his dad’s an ass, I’m not surprised no one’s telling him.”

His voice is loud enough to carry; Clarke casts an anxious glance around before continuing.

“And I’m serious.” Something in her voice— it sounds like she’s struggling with words— makes him look at her. “I don’t know what you heard about us, but we’re… not a thing. Not really.”

Bellamy holds her gaze. He understands the shake in Clarke’s husky words. He understands why she grips the stem of her glass a little harder as she says them. Why her lips are parted waiting for his reply. Why she didn’t tell anyone on her side of the family two years ago that she and Bellamy had broken up.

He understands all these things, because he’s loved Clarke Griffin for years and years of his life. He knows her too well not to see what she’s trying to tell him.

Bellamy returns his studious gaze to his glass and lets a mocking smile twist his lips. “Well, when you two become _a thing_ , be sure to send me an invite to the wedding.”

He hears Clarke’s sharp intake of breath beside him. Then she slams her glass on the counter of the bar.

“You’ll be lucky to get a toothpick in the mail from me,” she hisses.

He smiles, bitter and angry just like her. “I’ll look forward to it.”

She stomps away. He settles back against the bar.

Someone new sidles up to him. Bellamy knows who it is without looking.

“Long time no see, Bellamy Blake,” Cage Wallace says, and the sound of his voice makes his skin crawl. “How’ve you been?”

Bellamy tosses back what remains of his drink and puts it down on the counter right beside Clarke’s. “What do you want?” He turns to look at Cage.

Cage is leaning against the bar, smirking, sinister. Bellamy hates him. Wishes he’d never met him— he remembers that day vividly.

It was when Clarke’s mother was still going to trial for the death of Jake Griffin. At that time, the situation was serious. Abby Griffin was probably going to prison. Bellamy had spent a lot of time with the Griffins during that period, trying to be there for Clarke and her family just like they had always been there for him. It was a week before the trial when there were many people at their household, and he was in the kitchen, filling up a glass of water for Clarke, when he heard Cage Wallace walk in.

All he knew about the man at the time was that he was a Senator, and the father of one of Clarke’s friends. So he didn’t say anything. It was Cage who spoke first, as he rooted around in the fridge.

“Sad, this whole business, isn’t it,” he said. “There’s not enough evidence to support Abby’s alibi.”

Bellamy looked up and nodded. He meant to leave after that. He should’ve. But then Cage spoke again as he straightened, voice casual but soft enough that it didn’t carry.

“I have that evidence.”

Bellamy paused. But Cage was just staring at him, eyes glittering in the kitchen lights.

“Then use it,” Bellamy says slowly.

“I will.” Cage crosses his arms. “But first I need you to do something for me.”

Bellamy had blinked. He didn’t even know this man. Never spoke a word to him in his life. “Me?”

“You,” Cage echoed softly, and pushed off the counter to walk closer. “See, I have a problem. When my mother passed, she left a huge inheritance for my son, to be given to him if he got married before the age of thirty. He’s twenty-six now.”

Bellamy watched the man warily.

“And if he doesn’t get married before he’s thirty, that money goes off to charity. You see my problem here, Bellamy?”

Bellamy didn’t answer. It seemed to have been a rhetorical question anyway, because Cage kept going with hardly a pause. “I’ve _tried_ to introduce him to people. But he’s been enamoured with this one girl for years. And the problem is, this girl doesn’t even _see_ him, because she’s off spreading her legs for _you_.”

Bellamy moved forward without even thinking, blinded by sudden rage, but Cage held up a hand.

“Ah, ah, ah.”

Bellamy glared. His hands were balled into fists. But as satisfying as it might have been to hit him, that would cause a commotion, and the Griffins had enough to deal with. He settled for gritting out, “Don’t talk about her that way.”

“See, this is great. You _care_ about Clarke,” Cage replied. “You really do. I notice that. That’s why I’m giving you this deal, Bellamy. You make Clarke, ah, available, and I release the evidence that makes her mother a free woman. Abby’s happy, my son’s happy, I’m happy, and you’re happy, because Clarke is happy.”

“You have got to be joking.”

“I’m not.” He smiled then, and the effect was terrifying. “I also have the power to make Abby’s situation worse, you know. The death penalty still exists in this state.”

“You piece of shit,” Bellamy ground out, disbelieving. Cage Wallace had been a mainstay in the Griffins’ social circle for years, and now he was talking about the _death penalty_ without so much as a glint of remorse. Clarke was fragile enough with her father’s sudden death, he couldn’t even imagine her reaction if faced with the possibility of her mother’s too.

Cage just reached out to pat him on the shoulder. “Just think about it, kid. Besides, you and a Senator’s daughter? That’s never going to work out. Might as well cut your losses early.” And then he left the kitchen, whistling a tune under his breath, and leaving Bellamy to stand there for a long time.

—

Presently, Bellamy wants to hurt Cage as much as the man has hurt him. He says, “I wouldn’t hold your breath for your son and Clarke getting married. You’re never getting your hands on that inheritance.”

Cage stiffens slightly. “They’re together.”

Bellamy shrugs. “But apparently your son hasn’t even told you that yet.”

“Well, he doesn’t have to. It’s obvious. There’s still time,” Cage says. “Two years, in fact. That’s more than enough.”

Bellamy doesn’t reply. The thing is, it _is_ enough time. Clarke’s boyfriend, unlike his father Cage here, is a genuinely good man. He’d always been; they’d all known each other since they were kids. And despite Clarke’s words, Bellamy knows she likes him well enough. She’s dating him, after all. 

He can see it all happening, this future unfolding, right in his mind’s eye.

It hurts. He’s bitter on the inside and out. “Can’t wait until the day Clarke finds out what you did.”

Cage gives him a calm look. “She never will, will she?”

“Maybe I’ll let it slip.”

“Then I’d be careful how much you drink, Bellamy. I still have influence around here, remember?”

Bellamy says nothing, though his hands ball up into fists.

Cage’s voice is low as he reminds him, “I can make Clarke’s mother’s court case come back up if I really wanted to. Or have your dear little sister put on the blacklist for every academic institution in this country. Or maybe, if I really feel like you’re showing up too often in Clarke’s life, maybe even on _purpose_ , well, let’s just hope nothing… unfortunate happens to her.”

He’s heard these threats a thousand times, but they still terrify him. “I’m not here for Clarke,” he says tightly. “I was invited by Kane. He would’ve known something was off if I didn’t–”

“I know,” Cage says soothingly. “It’s alright, this time.”

Bellamy hates him so much he can’t breathe. He looks away from the man, only to find Abby watching them from a distant table.

Cage has noticed too, and a friendly smile has returned to his face. Always putting on a good show. He extends a jovial hand for Bellamy to shake.

“I’m glad to hear our deal is still in place.”

Bellamy grips Cage’s hand as hard as he can and smiles with all his teeth. “Go to hell.”

Cage laughs under his breath, and pats his shoulder again. “That’s a good boy.” Then he walks away. Bellamy’s only satisfaction in that moment is watching the other man flex his hand as he strolls off.

The satisfaction wears off when his gaze shifts back to the table Abby’s sitting at. Clarke is there, too, gazing at him, but once he meets her eyes she looks away. Now he just feels tired. Suddenly all he wants is to go home.

His feet take him to Clarke instead.

He knows she can feel him approaching, but she ignores him, at least until he stands beside her and puts a hand on her shoulder.

“I have to go now,” he says to her, and Abby looks up from her conversation.

“So soon?”

“I have a flight early tomorrow.” He pauses, looks down at the top of Clarke’s head. This is the part where she would smile and get up to kiss him for her mother’s benefit. This is the part where she, and he, pretend everything is alright. The moment where Bellamy can feel some small drop of undeserved happiness, knowing Cage Wallace is unlikely to get what he wants.

But Clarke doesn’t move from her chair. “Okay,” she says. “Have a safe flight.” She reaches back to pat his arm. Abby’s expression shifts to confusion when Clarke does nothing else, but Clarke ignores it. She’s still as a statue. 

Bellamy suspects she’s close to tears.

A lump grows in his throat. He kneels at the side of Clarke’s chair, keenly aware that the eyes of everyone at the table are on them, and not caring.

“I’ll miss you,” he tells her softly. Her eyes are bright and shiny as she turns towards him. He takes her hand, where it rests in her lap, and with the other, he brushes her hair away from her cheek. Her eyes fall shut at the contact.

He means to say his next words lightly, casually as one partner says it to the other in public, but they tremble instead: “I love you.”

Clarke opens her eyes and searches his for a long moment before replying, “I love you too.”

The people at the table _ooh_ and _aww_ at their exchange. But Bellamy only has eyes for his best friend, the love of his life, the one who he always knew he would give up anything for, and now he’s proving it.

He squeezes her hand before releasing her and standing. “Enjoy the rest of the party.” He throws a smile back at Clarke’s mother.

He starts to walk away, but not before Clarke’s voice rings out.

“Bellamy.”

He turns back. She’s stood up from the table, followed him the few paces that took them away from the table. Her eyes are wide. She’s biting her lip. Then she says, hesitant, “I didn’t mean what I said before. If… down the road…” She swallows and changes tack. “We could always be friends, at least, right?”

The words wouldn’t make sense to the others listening in. But _he_ understands them, from their earlier conversation. 

Bellamy smiles softly and nods; it’s convincing enough, he thinks, that Clarke wouldn’t be able to tell that his heart is shattering. He can feel Cage Wallace watching them. So when Clarke smiles tentatively back, he turns on the heel and really walks away.

Before leaving the reception, he goes to the washroom to splash water on his face. And when he comes out, he searches for Clarke in the crowd one last time, because he’s _weak_.

She’s still at the table he left her at, cheeks flushed as she laughs with friends mid-conversation. Happy, he thinks, is the word to describe her in this moment. The way he always wanted her to be.

Bellamy turns and melts away into the shadows.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 05/30/2018: part two is now posted (the next chapter)! 
> 
> @wellsjahasghost on tumblr :)


	2. The Art of Repainting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaand here it is! 
> 
> quick shout-out to Sleeping at Last for their beautiful song North, which inspired certain themes in this fic.

—ONE YEAR LATER —

Clarke has never had this much trouble choosing a dress before.

“What about this one?” She turns desperately to her fiancé, twirling for effect. She smooths down the white satin and waits. They’re standing in Clarke’s bedroom in her townhouse, where she’s in front of the full-length mirror, and he’s in front of her dresser mirror, effortlessly knotting his tie.

“It looks beautiful,” he says, and tilts his head. “But the hem is kind of ripped.”

She looks down, and _great_ , he’s right. When did that even happen? She can’t show up to a Senators’ charity dinner with a dress with a ripped hem. Especially not when it’s her and Drew’s first public outing as an engaged couple. With a slightly hysterical huff, she turns on her heel and heads back into her walk-in closet.

She emerges in a black, sleek number. “What about this one?” She turns in front of the mirror and sighs. “Never mind. I look like we’re going to a funeral.”

Drew glances at her reflection. He gives her a once over and a smile. “No, you don’t. You look gorgeous.”

Clarke smiles back. It falls flat. As Drew goes back to his tie, Clarke stares into the mirror at her own black-rimmed blue eyes and a heavy feeling crashes into her without warning.

Bellamy wouldn’t have said she looked _gorgeous_.

Bellamy would have been struggling to knot his tie and he would have responded to _I look like we’re going to a funeral_ with a muttered “If only,” because he hated these kinds of functions. And she would have grinned, the sense of comradery easing her anxiety, before she walked over and fixed his tie for him. And by the time she looked back up, she’d find Bellamy watching her silently, his eyes soft. He’d tug at her collar and his lips would tip up. He’d say, “If I die from boredom tonight, promise me you’ll wear this dress to _my_ funeral,” and she’d grin wider.

“You could always wear that dark red one,” Drew says. Clarke blinks rapidly, jarred from her daydream. “You know, the one you wore to your birthday party.”

“Yeah.” Clarke nods. “I guess I’ll… do that.”

She walks back into her closet.

She sinks down to the floor.

She glares at the dresses hanging opposite her, because anger is an easier emotion to feel than anything else. She hates that her ex still has this much control over her.

It’s been three years. _Three_ years. The last time she’d even _seen_ Bellamy Blake was a year ago, at her mom’s wedding. She’d thought at that moment that he’d walked out of her life forever. But even now, when she’s newly engaged to be married to Drew Wallace, he still haunts her.

Maybe it’s because of the way he looked at her the last time they saw each other. There was something—something to his eyes. Something like regret. Like misery. But she must have been imagining that. After all, he broke up with her.

She’d vowed to move on after that wedding reception, and she had, for the most part. She’d told her family that she and Bellamy were no longer together. She and Drew had started seriously dating. She had moved the hell on and she thought of Bellamy less and less with each passing day.

Except for moments like this.

It’s worse with him than with her other exes. Maybe because they had been friends since they were kids, and are now estranged. Maybe because she could’ve _sworn…_ back then, she would’ve sworn on her _life_ that he loved her.

She gets up, dabbing delicately at the skin under her eyes to avoid ruining her makeup. Bellamy doesn’t deserve her tears.

Her foot crunches on something. She looks down. It’s the mail from yesterday. She’d been in a rush to get out the door for her shift at the hospital, and had shoved it in her closet for later.

Maybe it’ll help her get her mind off things. She starts flipping through.

Bills, bills, more bills… a medical journal she’s subscribed to. An invitation to an art festival in town that she had adjudicated at for the past few years. And…

Clarke frowns at the last item in her pile, a plain brown envelope. She flips it over. No return address.

She probably shouldn’t open this. She’s a Senator’s daughter, and therefore spends a lot of time in the spotlight. What if it’s something creepy?

She tears it open anyway. Masochism at its finest.

Only one piece of paper slips out, falling to the floor.

She bends to pick it up, turning it over. She squints in the near darkness, taking a moment to skim it over.

It’s not a note, or letter, or anything creepy from a fan. It’s just… the statement Cage Wallace, Drew’s father, had released three years ago that gave her mom an alibi in the court case of her father’s murder. It’s on fax paper, as if it had been sent to someone. Which makes sense. Maybe he’d faxed it to the court secretaries rather than sending by email or hand delivery.

And there’s nothing off about it. Nothing, except the date.

She squints at it. The date is several weeks before the charges against Abby Griffin had been dropped. This letter was written… weeks before Cage Wallace had actually submitted it to court.

Weeks, in which Abby had suffered needlessly, and Clarke had suffered with her.

There’s a knock at the door, making Clarke jump. The paper flutters from her hand.

“Clarke?” Drew calls. “Are you okay in there?”

“Coming,” she shouts, her voice high pitched. “I’m coming. Just go downstairs, I’ll meet you in the foyer.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.” As soon as she hears his footsteps fade, she scrambles to pick up the fax paper. She checks the date again. The “To” and “From” fields are blacked out. She keeps coming back to the damn date.

Why had Cage written a letter with evidence absolving her mother… and held onto it for weeks? Who had he been sending it to?

And why had he waited so long to give it to the court?

—

Clarke barely pays attention throughout the entire charity function. She’s too busy staring off into space and thinking about that damn letter.

Who had sent it to her? She starts running through a mental list of people in her head. People who were involved in that whole situation, three years ago. Cage, Drew, her mom, the lawyers, the other senators… and Bellamy.

He’s a wildcard in all this.

What if the letter’s not even real? What if someone just sent it to start some sort of drama?

What if _Bellamy_ sent it?

That doesn’t sound like him. He’s a direct person. He wouldn’t do something so underhanded. It’s not like him to play games.

But then again, how would she know what he would do, anymore?

“Hello, Clarke,” says a voice in front of her, and her chin jerks up to see Cage Wallace himself smiling at her, holding a flute of champagne. “You look radiant.”

“Thank you,” Clarke says. She’s changed into a new dress, a baby blue one perfect for this kind of event. But she barely pays attention to the Senator’s compliment, because all she can see when she looks at the man is that damn letter.

The words are at the tip of her tongue. She wants to wave the letter in his face, and shout at him to explain. But somehow, the way he’s smiling strikes her as very _slimy_ right now, rather than his usual charm. She’s never been the biggest fan of Senator Wallace, but right now is the first time that she’s felt genuine mistrust.

“It’s a great turnout tonight,” she says finally.

“It is,” Cage agrees. “Lots of money raised for a good cause.” His eyes gleam. Clarke imagines he cares more for the press he’s getting from all this.

“That’s great,” Drew says from Clarke’s side. Cage’s eyes flit to his son for the first time in this conversation.

“Congratulations on your engagement, by the way,” the senator says. “I’m glad Drew finally took that step.”

Drew laughs. “Well, I didn’t want to rush her.”

“No?” Cage’s eyes turn back to Clarke. “Why not?”

Drew grabs onto Clarke’s hand, squeezing. “She was getting over a relationship, a pretty long term one with one of our old high school friends. They were together for years. You remember Bellamy Blake?”

Clarke feels sweat beading on her back.

Cage tilts his head. “You know, I think I remember him. Curly hair, not that tall? Degrees coming out of his ass?”

“I guess,” Drew says. “He’s got the full suite, not to mention a PhD in history. Last I talked to him, he was trying to get a position at a university. But it didn’t work out. I hear he’s an elementary school teacher now instead.” He bumps Clarke’s hip playfully, as if in comradery over the career failures of an ex that he assumes Clarke would, by all rights, hate for breaking her heart.

Clarke feels like a horrible fiancée.

“That _is_ strange,” Cage agrees. There’s a strange twinkle to his eye, as if indulging in some private joke. “You’d think the man would’ve gotten somewhere in life by now.”

Drew now looks uncomfortable. “Well, maybe he’s just down on his luck. Job market can be hard.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t have good judgment,” Cage says. “I mean, he did break up with our gorgeous girl Clarke here.” He smiles again at Clarke. She inexplicably feels like she needs to take a thousand showers.

“It’s okay. I’ve moved on,” she says tightly, lifting her hand and displaying the diamond engagement ring as if it’s proof.

“I’m glad.” Cage studies the ring. Casually, he asks, “You still speak to him at all?”

She blinks. “Who? Bellamy?”

“Yeah.” He nods, and his brow furrows in concern. “He doesn’t bug you anymore, does he? Call you or anything?”

“No,” she says slowly. “I haven’t spoken to him in a year. Why would I?”

Cage settles back, and Clarke gets the very strange feeling like a bullet just whistled by her ear. “Oh, no reason. I just wanted to make sure my future daughter-in-law doesn’t have any stalker ex-boyfriends I need to worry about.” He laughs as Drew chuckles tightly, and Clarke pastes a smile on her face. “When’s the wedding?”

Drew’s chuckle fades. “We haven’t set a date.”

“You should have it within the year,” Cage says. “You’ve waited long enough.”

Within the year? Clarke’s chest tightens. She and Drew had never discussed a date when he proposed. She’d assumed it’d be a while; they’re both so busy. Within the year is too… soon. Too final. Too… much.

“We’ll have it when Clarke feels like it,” Drew says tightly. He and his father stare at each other. “We’re both busy with work these days, so…”

“I’ll get my assistant to start looking into wedding planners,” Cage says as though it’s final. “You two deserve a nice big wedding, and you shouldn’t have to wait for life to slow down. You won’t have to plan a single thing. I’ll take care of all of it.”

The two of them are silent. Cage cocks his head.

“And come on, Drew, you’re almost thirty. How long are you planning to wait?”

His words hang in the air, a razor sharp edge to them that Clarke might puzzle over if she wasn’t currently having a mini internal panic attack. Suddenly, she can’t stand another moment here. She needs to escape.

“I’m going to get some air,” she tells them with a horribly fake smile, and without waiting for an answer she power-walks out of the ballroom and into the foyer.

She doesn’t stop until she’s hit the front doors and is outside, gulping deep breaths of evening air. Getting married… getting married… getting _married…_

Without really thinking about it, she pulls out her phone and dials Bellamy.

The magnitude of what she’s doing—reaching out to Bellamy for the first time in a year—doesn’t hit her until the automated voice on the other end says that the number has been disconnected.

She pulls the phone away from her ear like it’s just blown a foghorn at maximum volume. He has a _new_ _phone number_?

All her life, he’s been one phone call away. Even when they became estranged, some part of her thought that would always be the case. Some part of her had thought he’d tell her if his number changed. That he’d want her to have it, no matter what.

It hits her all of a sudden just how much this subconscious assumption had been a _comfort_ to her..

She’s disappointed, and then she’s immediately disgusted that she’s disappointed. Even more so when she starts dialing Kane’s number instead.

Kane and her mother aren’t at this charity event; they’re on the campaign trail for Abby’s next election. He picks up, sounding tired.

“Hello?”

“It’s Clarke.”

“Hi, Clarke.” She hears him yawn. “Did you want to speak with your mother? She’s asleep.”

“No,” Clarke says quickly. Pauses, then goes for it. “I was just wondering… you still talk to Bellamy, right?”

A silence hangs between them. Clarke presses the phone closer to her ear. Bellamy and Kane had been friendly for a long time. They’d met through Clarke’s family, became friends, and still kept ties, she was sure, even after Clarke had split with him publicly.

“Sometimes,” Kane says warily. She releases a breath.

“Can you give me his phone number?”

Another pause. “Clarke, I’m not sure that’s the best idea—”

“Please,” Clarke says, hating how her voice sounds so desperate. “I just, I need to ask him something. I—” she scrambles for a lie, “—he, well, I think he has a book of mine. Something I forgot when we split. I need it now.”

“Alright,” Kane says slowly. He gives her the number.

Clarke scribbles it down on a tissue she’s fished out of her pocket. “Thank you.”

“Clarke—”

She hangs up. She dials the number on the tissue and holds her breath.

It rings once. Twice. Three times, and she feels like she’s going to throw up. Then the ringing stops.

A silence, and then: “Hello?”

She presses one hand to her mouth, hard. Despite everything, she can’t help the burning in her eyes.

Her chest hurts. His voice is just as she remembered it. Deep, smooth, calm, and a balm to her frazzled nerves. She can almost see him. She can almost smell him. She can almost touch him.

It’s pathetic, really. After hearing just one word from his mouth, it all comes flooding back, clear as day. Her broken heart noisily clatters back together, eager for him to smash it apart again; because at least that would mean that he touched it once more.

“Hello?” his voice says again, perfectly polite. She still can’t say a word. “Hello?”

She hears him sigh, and maybe even about to hang up, but right then the sob she’d been repressing escapes. It comes out more like a gasp; a small, desperate noise.

“Hello?” And now his voice is more alert, louder. Almost frantic. “Clarke?”

She inhales. Loudly. She feels dizzy just hearing him say her name. Dear god, she’s hopeless.

Wait. How does he know it’s her? Her number hasn’t changed. Does that mean he knows it by heart? Does that mean—

No. She won’t go down that road. It’s obvious that he’d recognize the number; they’d known each other for years and years, after all. It would be odd if he’d forgotten it so quickly. She clears her throat. “Yes.”

She’s relieved to find that she sounds steady. Finally.

“You alright?” he asks after a pause. “You sounded…”

“Winded,” Clarke supplies coolly. “I just came down a flight of stairs.”

A pause. Then: “Why are you calling me, Clarke?”

She straightens back her shoulders. Why _is_ she calling him, really? Now that she’s gotten to this point, she isn’t sure. Is it about what she’d been mailed this morning?

That’s what she’s going to tell herself.

“Because I got an odd piece of mail,” she says. “I thought it might be from you.”

“I’ve never sent you anything,” he says. He sounds puzzled, but the matter-of-fact way he says it just splinters her apart even more. Of _course_ he doesn’t send her anything. He doesn’t care for her anymore and he hasn’t for a long time. He didn’t even care to give her a real explanation for why they broke up.

 _It just isn’t working_ , he’d said. She’d tugged at his sleeve.

 _Why_? She’d shouted. _Please, Bellamy. Talk to me. When did this happen? What did I do?_ She’d smiled, watery, at him. _I know we can fix things. I’m sorry_.

 _I’m sorry, too_ , he’d said, and for a moment her heart had leapt with hope. But then he’d looked away. She could no longer see his face when he said without inflection, _I just woke up one day and realized I don’t see a future with you_.

“Clarke?” Bellamy says, and she realizes she’s been silent for a long time. She straightens her shoulders.

“I just saw it tonight,” she begins, and tells him, the long and short of it—the unaddressed envelope, the letter inside, the odd date of the letter. “And, I don’t know—you’re the only person I could think of to ask. You’re one of the only people who was there when it all happened. Did you—” She swallows, “Did you ever think there was something… _off_ about Senator Wallace?”

There’s dead silence on the other side of the line when she finally finishes. She frowns.

“Bellamy? Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” he says, and she’s sure she doesn’t imagine how tense he sounds. “I heard every word.”

“Well?”

“Well what?” His voice has become brisk, but again—there’s an underlying current of tension. “It’s obviously a hoax, Clarke. I don’t even know why you’re calling me over this.”

She grits her teeth. He’s grating on her nerves. “You’re kidding, right? You don’t think it’s odd that this just came out of nowhere? A letter from Cage, with all the evidence we needed to get my mother acquitted, and he was just holding onto it for _weeks_?”

“Have you ever thought that maybe he needed some time to get it fact-checked?” Bellamy says. “Maybe he wrote it and then went to confirm everything that he was saying before he went public.”

She stares, frozen, straight ahead of her. No, it hadn’t occurred to her at all. It makes perfect sense. She’s not sure why she hadn’t thought of that. Bellamy goes on.

“It would be bad press for a such a well known Senator to defend someone convicted of murder and then for all his evidence to fall through. He would’ve wanted to be sure. That kind of process _could_ take weeks.”

She finds her voice. “Then why would the receiver’s and sender’s names be blacked out? Who would’ve sent that to me?”

He sounds tired now. “I don’t know, Clarke. Someone who just wants to get to you?”

She’s silent. “I thought maybe it was you.”

She doesn’t really think it was him anymore, not after speaking to him, but she still wants his reaction. His answer is immediate.

“Jesus, Clarke.” He sounds taken aback at the thought. “Why would I do something like that?”

 _To hurt me_ , she thinks. _To make me feel something_.

She almost wants that to be the case; that he cares enough to want to make her feel something, even if that something is pain. The alternative—that he doesn’t care how she feels, either way—hurts more than any other kind of heartbreak.

“Believe me,” Bellamy says. “I want to move on from all of that as much as you do. I’m sorry you got that letter, but it’s probably nothing.”

She nods, even though he can’t see. “Okay.” Her own voice sounds oddly detached. Funnily enough, he’s calmed her down somehow. “You’re probably r—”

“Wait,” Bellamy says sharply. “You didn’t—you didn’t tell anyone about this, did you?”

“No,” she says, puzzled. “No, you’re the first person I’m telling. Why?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” he says. “I don’t know who sent that to you, but—you don’t want to bring this up with anyone. Especially Cage. Alright?”

“Why not?” She narrows her eyes. “Why _wouldn’t_ I bring it up with Cage? According to you, he’s got nothing to hide.”

There’s a pause after her last, challenging words. His response is careful, with no trace of the anxiety in his tone a moment ago. “Because it’ll just hurt your family more. Bringing up the past like that. For nothing.”

“Oh, suddenly you care about my _family_?” she snaps. Of course he does. Of _course_ everyone else in her family deserves more care for their feelings than _she_ does. They get his concern; she, his callousness.

How did she become the person he cares about _least_?

She holds the phone a bit away from her mouth and takes deep breaths to stop herself from crying.

“I’ve always cared, Clarke,” Bellamy says. He sounds slightly far away, as if—Clarke almost wants to _slap_ herself for this pathetic thought—as if he’s holding the phone away from his mouth too. A moment later, his voice returns to normal volume. “Just because things didn’t end well between us doesn’t mean…” he takes a breath, “that doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

God, she’s so angry. She’s so miserable. She’s so twisted up inside. She hates him, every molecule and atom and proton and quark that makes up Bellamy Blake. She hates him so much she could cry.

Because he can _say_ things like this, things that are so soft and gentle and so like the Bellamy she knew that even after everything he did to her she will still melt. She will still think to herself, _maybe there’s a chance. Maybe he still loves me_.

Well, _maybe_ it’s time to face reality.

She bites back everything she wants to fling at him. She swallows it all down and she says, “Great. Thanks. You too.” Her voice is brisk.

Another pause, and she’s not sure which one of them is supposed to hang up.

“I heard you and Drew are finally getting married,” Bellamy says carefully. “Congratulations.”

She wants to ask who told him, but it could have been any number of people. Octavia, who lives in the same city as Clarke. Or Kane. Or one of their shared friends, like Raven.

Or maybe—maybe he’d just seen it online. It had been on the news the day that Drew had proposed. The daughter of a Senator and the son of a Senator getting married, a cute little _Aww, look at that! Love is real!_ story that had run on several websites. That’s probably it.

“Thank you,” she says, equally carefully. She’d never told Bellamy that she’d finally broken the news of their breakup to her family, but he must’ve known for a while.

“I’m happy for you,” he says.

“Thank you.”

He doesn’t ask whether he has an invite to the wedding. Clarke doesn’t offer one.

“Well, good night,” Clarke says when he doesn’t say anything else. Her voice is quiet.

“Take care of yourself, Clarke,” he says, equally quietly.

“I will. You too.”

He hangs up. She stares at her phone for a long time before tucking it back in her purse and standing up.

By the time she’s walked back into the foyer, she spots Drew now talking to a dark-haired man by the staircase. She walks over, ironing a smile back on her face.

The dark haired man immediately turns to her. “Ah. Hello, Miss Griffin. We were just talking about the wedding. Perfect timing.”

“Wedding?” she repeats.

“Yes. I’m Senator Wallace’s personal assistant. I’ll be helping you plan your wedding for later this year.”

When Clarke says nothing, Drew turns to her. Softly, he asks, “What do you think, Clarke? How do you feel about getting married? We don’t have to, no matter what my dad says. Not if you’re not ready.”

She’s definitely not. But Clarke lifts her chin, meeting his eyes. Even if you care about someone, isn’t it normal to feel terrified about marrying them? The fear that comes with your life changing like that—to so wholly include another person—isn’t that just human?

But she can’t shake the feeling that there’s _more_ than that causing her trepidation. Like… like she would be closing a book. Never to be opened again.

She wants to scream no. She wants to run away. But that isn’t fair to Drew. That isn’t fair to _herself_. A lump rises in her throat, misery threatening to choke her. What’s the use? What’s the use in being so hung up over Bellamy? He broke up with her so cruelly. He broke her heart and then shattered the pieces to dust.

She needs to force herself to move on. In the most final way possible. Deep down, she knows—she’s known for _years—_ that the story of Clarke and Bellamy is over. She needs to slam the book shut and then burn it. Then she needs to open a brand new one.

“I would love to get married,” Clarke says clearly. “Within the year sounds great.”

—

“Mr. Blake.”

“Hold on a second, Aiden.”

“Mr. Blake!” the seven year old says, louder. “Please!”

Bellamy lets out an exasperated laugh from where he’s sitting with another one of his second-grade students, helping her shade within the lines. This particular one—Charlotte—had an odd sort of breakdown in class when she realized she had accidentally coloured outside the lines of the cartoon rabbit in her colouring book. Now that Bellamy had given her a replacement copy, and was sitting with her while she worked on it, the young girl had become calm again.

Bellamy kind of gets it. Mostly because he’s the kind of teacher who keeps an eye on things that happen at home. He’s pieced together that Charlotte’s parents just went through a messy divorce. What she needs is control in her life. If he can give that to her by helping her shade within the lines of a rabbit, then he will.

“Think you’ll be okay for a few minutes?” he asks her, as Aiden continues to say his name. He’s got half the other students off task by now, and Bellamy knows he needs to seize power quickly before he’s got a full on mutiny on his hands.

Charlotte sniffs and nods. Bellamy stands up and puts his hands on his hips. “ _What_ , Aiden?”

Aiden nods his head seriously. “There’s a problem.”

“A problem.”

“A biiiiig problem.”

“Is that right.” Bellamy glances at the clock. It’s nearly two-thirty in the afternoon; parents should be coming to collect their kids any minute now.

“I can’t find a red pencil.”

Bellamy kneels by Aiden’s desk and peers at the pile of coloured pencils he has beside him. “There’s one right there.”

“That’s what you think,” Aiden says, eyes solemn. He holds it up. “But it’s ‘cherry red’.” He shows the label to Bellamy, then draws a line across his paper, and the colour comes off as pink. “It’s not red. I need the _poppy red_.”

Charlotte’s head comes back up. “I need that one too!”

Soon, a host of other students are piping up about how they need the red pencil.

Bellamy sighs and inwardly curses the name of the art supplies company. Who even _uses_ the cherry red pencil? Why not just put two poppy reds in the pack? Maybe then they wouldn’t be such a goddamn hot commodity.

“Listen,” he says, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I’m going to go to the store tonight to buy some. Alright? You’ll all get your own poppy red.”

His words are followed by a cheer from the students. As Bellamy stands up, the normally reserved Aiden actually whoops.

“You’re the best, Mr. Blake!”

“Yeah, okay,” Bellamy says, a little gruffly, but mostly fondly. The door to the classroom opens, and a few parents filter in. “Just remember you said that the next time I ask you to read out loud.” Aiden wanders off without answering, and Bellamy grins despite himself.

Despite the unforeseen circumstances that led him to this career path, he loves his job. There’s an unexpected joy to it. The joy of seeing Charlotte look content for at least a few hours of the day, before she has to go home to face the harsh realities of her parents’ divorce. The quiet intelligence of Aiden, reminding him of Octavia when she was younger. The contentedness in the foster kid’s face—Madi—when Bellamy quietly gave her a sandwich for lunch, because he’d noticed sometimes she never had anything to eat, and her clothes were too big. The laughter of all of them when he reads a funny book, and the wonder in their eyes when he teaches them something new.

And life in this town isn’t half bad, either. He’s made friends—like the gym teacher, Roan. He’s a bit of an asshole, but Bellamy figures that’s pretty much a requirement for gym teachers anyway.

“That’s kind of you,” a new voice says, and he looks up to see Charlotte’s mother standing beside him from where he’s clearing the desk. “Getting them new crayons like that.”

She’s a pretty woman, but with exhaustion stamped in the shadows under her eyes. He relates.

“It’s nothing,” he says, offering her a half smile. It’s not the first time he’s bought something for his students with his own money. The school district doesn’t exactly have a budget for frivolous things like poppy red coloured pencils.

“Still,” the mother says. “Thank you. For caring so much.” He nods, and she adds, “I’m Bree, by the way. Charlotte’s mom.”

“Bellamy Blake. But—” he shakes his head ruefully, “you knew that.”

She laughs, although he’s pretty sure his comment wasn’t that funny. “It doesn’t hurt to hear it one more time.”

Bellamy slowly shuts his desk drawer. Bree continues to stand there, smiling at him in a way that makes him duck his head. If he’s reading the signals right, she’s interested, but he’s not about to get into a relationship with one of his student’s parents.

He’s not about to get into a relationship, period. He’s just not ready for that. He’d realized that recently when Gina, a long-time friend of his, had broken up with him after a few months of casual dating.

 _I think we’re better off friends_ , she’d said to him, apologetically.

He’d asked her why. She had arched a brow.

 _Bellamy, you know why_.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Bellamy says pointedly. “Charlotte’s been doing well, although she had a bit of an episode today in class.”

Bree’s brow furrows, but just then Bellamy’s cell vibrates. Most of his class has already cleared out by now, the remainder putting on their jackets and outdoor shoes in preparation for leaving. He fishes the phone out of his pocket and checks the caller ID.

There’s no name, just a number. But it’s a number Bellamy has memorized—Cage Wallace’s encrypted phone.

His stomach drops. The sickening amount of alertness he suddenly feels is like being shot up with epinephrine. Fuck. This can’t be good.

Dear god, not after—his nausea rises—not after _Clarke_ had called him. What if Cage found out that they’d been in contact?

And what if Clarke had talked to Cage about that damn letter she’d received? Bellamy hasn’t got a clue who would’ve sent it. It had clearly made her suspicious about the Senator. But if she had actually _told_ Cage about it…

Cage would naturally think Bellamy had sent it to her.

Which he would _never do_ , because he isn’t that stupid. He’s been reminded far too many times what could happen to Clarke, her mother, or Octavia if he steps out of line. But he’s sure Cage would love to remind him again if he thinks even for a minute Bellamy might have sent it.

His hands feel slippery on the phone.

“Are you alright?” Bree asks, and Bellamy looks up.

“Yeah,” he says, and waves his phone around. “I just, I just have to take this.”

She nods. “That’s alright. We can talk about Charlotte tomorrow.”

Luckily, the other students have cleared out, and Bree and Charlotte walk out the door a second later. Bellamy drops into his chair and stares at the caller ID.

Back in the day, Bellamy had tried ignoring the senator’s calls. It had been months before he realized all his job applications at academic institutions weren’t yielding any interviews, even though he knew for a fact that his resume was excellent.

By the time he started picking up Cage’s phone calls, it had been too late for that. “How’s job hunting going?” Cage had asked by way of greeting the first time Bellamy had picked up after months, and his suspicions were confirmed.

He hasn’t gotten a call from Senator Wallace in nearly a year. He’d thought he was fucking _free_. But no. With shaky hands, he puts the phone to his ear. He waits.

“Hello, Bellamy,” Cage says cheerfully. “How are you doing?”

Bellamy stares at the sketch of a monster Madi had drawn that is taped to the wall. “Fucking dandy.”

“Great,” Cage says. “I’m glad to hear it. How are your little kindergarteners?”

Bellamy doesn’t bother to correct him, although _I teach second grade, you son of a bitch_ , is on the tip of his tongue. “What do you want?”

“Just checking in, that’s all.” Cage grows serious. “I mean, I did get you this job after all. Wanted to see how you were doing.”

Bullshit. Bellamy got this job on his own; Cage just hadn’t interfered for once to make sure he didn’t. And Bellamy knows exactly what _checking in_ means. It’s code for _checking if you were contacting Clarke_. Or taking any action against Senator Cage Wallace, really. “I haven’t done a damn thing.”

“Really?” Cage asks. “My soon-to-be daughter in law was talking about you the other night, you know.”

His throat feels tight. “Really.”

“About how she was over you,” he continues. “And happy with Drew. Which is good, isn’t it?”

Bellamy hums in response. He’s glad Clarke is over him. Really. That makes one of them.

It hurt like a bitch when Kane had let slip that they were engaged, but he had also been bracing for years for this. He knew it was inevitable. Now he just has to figure out how to stop feeling like he’s being run over by a truck every time she’s mentioned.

“I’m glad this whole thing has worked out for all of us,” Cage says. “Even if you did break that girl’s poor heart. Really, Bellamy, you’re still part of the family. You should come visit Drew and Clarke sometime. Maybe after their honeymoon.”

Bellamy grinds his teeth at the taunt. They both know what will happen if Bellamy turns back up in Clarke’s life. “I’d love to.”

“I’m sure you would,” Cage says. “But I’m sure you’re also quite busy over there.”

“Oh, it’s crazy.”

“If you can’t show up for the wedding, we’d understand.”

“You know, I think I am pretty busy that time of year.” Bellamy doesn’t even know whether that’s true. It’s not like he knows when the wedding is. He just knows that this is his line. This is what he’s supposed to say to make Cage Wallace happy.

So that Drew Wallace will be married before he’s thirty, and will therefore receive the huge inheritance his grandmother left him. Which Cage will then pounce on.

“Too bad,” Cage says. “Well, I’m glad you’re doing so well, Bellamy.”

Bellamy stays silent, hardly daring to hope. Is that it? Is that all Cage wanted to say? To warn him away from Clarke’s wedding, which he’d already been planning to avoid? Maybe he was just being paranoid about this whole thing. After all, he tells himself, he doubts Clarke would have _told_ anyone she called her ex. And he had gotten the feeling she was planning to keep that letter to herself anyhow. There’s no way that any of this could have reached Cage’s ears—

“I just got off the phone with Marcus Kane,” Cage adds. “He mentioned the funniest thing. Apparently Clarke asked for your number?”

Bellamy’s heart, rather than quickening in pace, slows. He feels like he’s listening to this conversation on the TV, like it’s happening to someone else.

“Something about needing a book from you. I hope you told her you didn’t have it.”

“I didn’t tell her anything,” Bellamy whispers, but the Senator is already talking over him.

“Anyway, that was funny. Take care. And tell your sister I said hello,” Cage adds cheerfully. “I hope she’s staying safe out there on her motorcycle. Quite the daredevil, that one, isn’t she?”

Bellamy opens his mouth, but he’s suddenly unable to speak, to think, to even breathe. It doesn’t matter anyway; before he can reply, the line cuts out.

—

“I swear, he couldn’t believe I was a mechanic.” Raven rolls her eyes.

Clarke hides her smile behind her tea. She and Raven are doing lunch together at a cafe near the hospital, which they do once in a while when they can fit it in their busy schedules.

Raven goes on.

“So then this guy is like, ‘what you need a pressure regulator for?’ And I’m like, ‘regulating pressure.’” Raven grins, tipping her chair back. “Emori loses her shit, and this guy looks at me like his dick just fell off—”

Her phone rings. Clarke jumps, along with half the diners in the tiny cafe.

“Why is your phone on so loud?” Clarke hisses. Raven unapologetically and slowly begins fishing around her bag.

“I work in a shop, Clarke. I’d never be able to hear it if I had it on vibrate all the time like you. God, it’s probably Wells again, trying to get me to jump-start his piece of shit car—” She stops when she sees the caller ID.

“What is it?”

Raven bites her lip, looking conflicted. She stands, a little lopsidedly thanks to her leg brace. “I’ll… go outside. Be right back.”

Her voice is gentler. Although no one said a name, Clarke feels a stone drop in her stomach. Raven is usually so brusque—she only acts like this when it’s _Bellamy_.

Clarke straightens her shoulders. She gestures to the table. “No, sit. I know it’s Bellamy. It’s okay.”

Raven eyes her warily. “Really?”

Clarke smiles. “Really.” She can’t avoid mentions of him forever. Especially when their social circles still overlap.

With one last look and a shrug, Raven falls back into the booth and puts the phone to her ear. “What?”

Clarke winces at how annoyed she sounds. She’s not actually annoyed, Clarke knows that; being brisk is just Raven’s modus operandi. But Bellamy already has enough brisk treatment in his life. He needs _gentle_.

Clarke hates herself for thinking that, too. _She_ used to be the one who was always gentle with him.

“Slow down,” Raven is saying now, and Clarke tunes back in. “What? Octavia? Why don’t you just call her yourself?”

Despite herself, Clarke leans forward to try to hear. She fails; all she can hear is incoherent chatter of a tinny voice in the speaker.

Raven rolls her eyes. “Yeah, well if you stopped calling her so much, maybe she’d pick up more often. Bellamy, I’m sure she’s fine.”

Clarke chews her lip, feeling almost anxious on his behalf without even really being able to hear him.

When Bellamy and Octavia were younger, their relationship was a hell of a lot more dysfunctional. Bellamy was a controlling older brother, and Octavia had gotten sick of it and fought back, in more ways than one.

Things had come to a head. Her boyfriend Lincoln had been wrongly arrested and Octavia thought Bellamy had orchestrated it because he’d openly disapproved of their relationship. Clarke still sees red sometimes when she remembers the bruise on Bellamy’s jaw.

Octavia didn’t know any better than to use Bellamy as her emotional and once physical punching bag, and Bellamy didn’t know any better than to take it. That was how the two of them had survived as kids in poverty, especially after their mom died. They only had each other. For everything.

Years later, they’ve more or less made up. Things are still tense, but they’re getting there. Bellamy gives her space where he never did before—hence his attempt to only call her once a week—and Octavia apologizes when she says something hurtful where she used to just pile on.

Although from the looks of things, Bellamy’s failing in his attempt to not call her too often, so Clarke has to wonder how Octavia’s faring on her end of the bargain.

“Okay,” Raven is saying. “Fine. I’ll call her.” She pauses. “You know Octavia hardly answers her texts, Bellamy, that’s just how she is. Okay. Okay. Okaaay. Bye.” She hangs up.

Clarke looks at her expectantly.

“He does this a lot,” Raven says. “He’ll call me in a panic and get me to call Octavia. Pretty sure she knows exactly what’s up, but she doesn’t call him out for cheating.” She rolls her eyes again and makes to pick up her fork.

“Aren’t you going to call her?” Clarke asks hesitantly.

“It can probably wait ‘til after this.”

“Maybe you should,” Clarke says. “He sounded… frantic.”

Raven looks up and catches her eye. “Clarke…”

Her voice is slightly gentler than usual, like she knows what Clarke is thinking.

“I’m saying this for Octavia’s benefit,” Clarke says pointedly. “In case something’s happened.”

Raven raises her eyebrows and smirks. “Yeah. Right.” But she picks up her phone again and dials. The two of them wait, but after a minute Raven shakes her head and puts the phone down.

“She’s not answering.”

“What?” Clarke grips the edge of the table. “So?”

“So she’s probably doing something else. It’s not exactly out of the ordinary for her not to pick up her phone.” Raven eyes her warily. “Jeez, Clarke, relax.”

Clarke realizes she’s holding on too tight to her spoon, and lets go. Raven’s probably right. She’s just been thinking about Bellamy too much this week.

“Anyway,” Raven yawns, “back to this pressure regulator…”

—

The next day, Clarke heads to work.

She’s an ER doc, and today she’s been called in at a different hospital in the city than she usually works at. She’s got a contract with both hospitals, but doesn’t often get called in to this one.

“Welcome back, Clarke,” crows one of the nurses, Jasper Jordan, as she walks into the ER. He’s all decked out in scrubs and is pulling on gloves. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”

“I’ve been busy.” She smiles at him. He’s another old friend, although she doesn’t see him all that often.

“Yeah, I heard. Getting married?”

She holds up her hand, displaying the ring. He gawks at it.

“The second you take that off to do some procedure, I’m going to pawn it. You know that, right?”

“You’ll have to take it first.” She drops it pointedly into the front pocket of her scrubs. He wags his finger at her as he backs away.

“Better stay vigilant, Clarke!”

“Where you going?”

“Big motor vehicle crash last night,” he yells. “Bunch of people in critical condition. I’m going in to help with a surgery.” He tips his head at her. “See ya on the other side.”

As he vanishes, another nurse comes up to her.

“We’ve got a problem,” she says, and Clarke nods, turning to follow her as she speaks rapidly. “Twenty-two year old female motorcyclist. Was in the big crash yesterday. She was concussed and only woke up this morning, and her mental status was unremarkable then, but now she’s been displaying signs of confusion and dizziness.”

“Anything else?”

“Upper left quadrant pain. Lacerations to the abdomen.” She pauses. “Left shoulder pain.”

Clarke clucks her tongue in sympathy. Sounds like it could be a ruptured spleen. “Let’s check in on her.”

She’s not prepared for when the curtain is ripped back and it’s Octavia Blake.

Her leg is in a cast, there are bruises all over her face, bandages over her abdomen, but it’s _Octavia Blake_. She’s staring off into nothing, her head lolling. Not all that there.

For a second, Clarke feels like she’s not really inhabiting her body. For a second, all she can think of is Bellamy frantically asking Raven to check on his sister yesterday.

Yesterday, when this crash happened.

It’s got to be a coincidence. Right?

“Dr. Griffin?” the nurse says uncertainly at her side. Clarke snaps back into doctor mode. She shuts down the feelings. She does her physical examination.

Octavia doesn’t really seem to recognize her as she examines her and taps at her abdomen, but when Clarke has finally deduced that Octavia does, indeed, have a ruptured spleen and does, indeed, need immediate surgery, the younger girl grabs her wrist with a surprisingly strong grip.

Clarke looks down.

“Where’s... ” Octavia slurs. “Where’s… my brother…”

Her stomach knots. Someone’s got to tell him, haven’t they? Lincoln’s out of country right now, which means he’s her only emergency contact. Telling Bellamy is a task she doesn’t envy.

“We’ll make sure he knows.”

—

As it turns out, he already does.

Clarke finds this out after she’s left surgery a few hours later, exhausted, and goes for a cup of coffee. When she returns to check on her patient, she finds him already there.

Octavia’s asleep in her bed, dozing away from the pain meds, and Bellamy’s at her bedside. His head in his hands. Clarke stands in the doorway for a moment, watching him. All she can see is the top of his curly haired head, and his wrinkled blue dress shirt, like he just up and left when he heard the news. Which is exactly what she’s sure he did.

She’s about to step out and leave again when he lifts his head, and their eyes connect.

Clarke feels a shock ripple through her all the way down to her toes. His lips part as he registers her. She doesn’t usually work in this hospital, after all. He wouldn’t have been expecting to see her.

It shouldn’t surprise her that his mouth is the same shape, his eyes still black-brown in the dim light like dark chocolate, the bittersweet kind. Still, she finds herself studying him like it’s the first time she ever saw him.

He looks more haggard than the last time she saw him. Exhausted. She’s sure some of it is just because of what happened to Octavia, but… she can’t help but think there’s something chronic about the way his shoulders are weighed down, the way he’s hunched over in his chair. The only alert thing about him right now is the way he’s studying her. Intently. Taking her in, after a year apart.

He stands up abruptly at the same time that Clarke steps back.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” she says, turning around.

“Wait,” he rasps.

She grips her coffee harder. Hearing his voice in person is so much different than hearing it over the phone. He’s so much more… present. His voice commands her attention, even when it’s nearly a whisper. And she helplessly gives it.

“Please,” he adds, and that’s what makes her turn around, the fact that he sounds so broken. Because somehow, no matter what, she’ll always have a soft spot for him, and maybe it’s best to stop denying that.

“I’m sorry, Bellamy,” she says gently. “I’m sure you already heard the details about what happened.”

He nods, bites his lip, and looks down. But not before she notices his eyes are red. He scrubs at his jaw with one hand. “Is she going to be okay?”

She knows for a fact the nurses would have already told him. He just wants to hear it from her.

“Octavia is stable,” Clarke says. “She’s recovering. If things go as they are, she’ll be just fine in a few months. There’s no need to worry.”

He takes a deep breath and exhales, nodding slowly. Relief.

“She just won’t be riding a motorbike any time soon,” she adds, and that actually gets the barest of smiles out of him.

“Yeah, I’m sure she’ll take that well.” He peeks up at her, almost shyly, and for a moment, they just smile at each other. Clarke is taken back to when they were teenagers, when their friendship had _many_ shared little smiles just like this, full of uncomplicated affection for each other. He always had the capacity to make her feel like she was basking in the warmth of the sun when he smiled.

Clarke feels her cheeks heat. What is she even doing? She’s got to do her rounds. She can’t get lost in irrelevant memories here. She takes a loud slurp of her coffee.

“Well, I had better go,” she says. His smile vanishes instantly.

“Sorry to keep you.” He sits back down, but now Clarke remembers something.

“How did you know?” she asks slowly, and he looks up sharply.

“Know what?”

Clarke debates saying it for a second, but then decides to go all in.

“I was with Raven yesterday when you called her,” she tells him. “She said you seemed really frantic that she should check on Octavia. And then that same day… well…”

She nods to the bed.

He says nothing.

“Quite the coincidence,” Clarke says. He looks up then, eyes shuttered.

“I call Raven all the time about Octavia. It wasn’t out of the ordinary. Hell of a coincidence, though, I agree.”

There’s something odd to his voice, though. A tremulous quality. She can’t shake the feeling there’s something he’s not saying. And she can’t forget how frantic he’d sounded on the phone. More than would be normal for a _just checking in_ sort of call.

“Bellamy… Did you know something was going to happen to her?” Clarke asks quietly.

His eyes flash, and she knows she’s said the wrong thing. “If I knew something was going to happen to her, don’t you think I would’ve stopped it?” he snaps. “Do you think I _want_ people around me to get hurt?”

Clarke’s holding up her hands, but then she realizes it’s not a rhetorical question. He’s shaking, waiting for her answer. “No, Bellamy, of course not. Why would I ever think that about you?”

He looks away, back to his sister. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” he says, bitterly.

She blinks as she takes in his meaning. Because he _did_ hurt one of the people around him willingly—Clarke.

But he doesn’t deserve her anger right now. He’s on the verge of collapsing in on himself like a dying star, and she refuses to be the catalyst.

“We’re both past that now,” she tells him gently. She pauses, and decides to extend an olive branch, even though the thought still hurts. “We can be friends. It would mean a lot to me if you came to my wedding. Octavia, too.”

She can’t be sure, but she thinks Bellamy actually— _sobs_.

But a moment later, it sounds more like a cough, which he’s smothering with his hand, and she decides she imagined it.

“No,” he says firmly. “I can’t come. I’m busy.”

She gawks at him. “Do you even know the date?”

He glares at her, and Clarke flinches at every vitriol-filled word that comes out of his mouth next.

“How many times do I have to say no? I’m not coming to your damn wedding. Don’t put me on the guest list, don’t send me invites, and _for god’s sake_ , don’t even _mention_ me around your fucking in-laws.” His eyes are unnaturally bright. “I don’t want to be a part of it. Or hell, your life in general. You got it, princess?”

Clarke steadies her breathing.

“Loud and clear,” she says, and finally, finally she thinks she actually does get it. She leaves the hospital room and doesn’t see him again for the rest of her shift.

—

For the next few days, everything is as normal. She doesn’t take any more shifts at the other hospital. She hears through Jasper that Octavia was discharged. She goes to work, goes home, sees Drew, rinse and repeat.

And then her life implodes all over again.

—

It’s another envelope. Another brown, nondescript, no-return-address envelope in her pile of daily mail.

When she sees it, she just stares at it uncomprehendingly for a minute. She’d almost managed to put the last one out of her mind. What kind of surprise does this one hold?

Her hands shake as she opens it. She probably shouldn’t be doing this. If it’s the same person trying to stir drama, it’ll only send her off on another conspiracy trail.

But it’s not about Abby Griffin.

It’s about her fiancé.

It’s a stapled pile of papers, and she skims it long enough to realize it’s Drew’s grandmother’s will. She skims it until she comes upon a carefully highlighted section.

Her heart stops when she reads it, and then starts again furiously. She can barely read the words, the anger is so all-consuming.

_… and if he is not married by the time he turns thirty years old, this money will then go the charity of my choice, which is…_

She doesn’t read the rest. It’s not what matters.

What matters is that Drew’s fucking inheritance is dependent on the fact that he marry Clarke… _within the year_.

—

Clarke doesn’t really remember the drive up to the Wallace estate. She’s seething so much that she’s on autopilot. The guards let her in, she parks, and ascends the porch stairs calmly. The Senator isn’t home; she knows this because he’s currently across the country campaigning and flying in tonight.

But Drew is. He answers the door with a smile, leaning in to kiss her.

She leans back. “What is this?” She demands, holding it up in front of his face.

He frowns, begins to read it. His lips part into an O.

“What _is_ this?” she shouts again. She doesn’t care that she’s making a scene. That her voice is carrying across the beautiful green lawn to where the security guards can surely hear.

He looks at her in horror. “How did you get this?”

“Tell me it’s not real, Drew!”

He winces. “Come into the house, Clarke.”

She stands her ground. “Just tell me you weren’t waiting to get money from your dead grandmother if you just married me as soon as possible. Tell me you wouldn’t just sit on information like this and not tell me.”

He stays quiet. Then, “I’m sorry, Clarke.”

Her eyes blur with tears. She shoves the will at his chest. “How could you not tell me this?”

“Clarke,” he says, “I wanted to tell you. I wasn’t allowed. My father—”

“Who are you marrying again, Drew? Your _father_?”

“Listen to me.” He swallows, and then talks very fast. “Listen. I’ve never cared about that inheritance. My dad wants it. I’ve loved you for _years_. But you were with Bellamy. And then you broke up with him, and,” he swallows again, “and I thought maybe we had a chance. I wasn’t even planning on marrying you before I was thirty. I was going to wait. But then you _saw_ my dad a while ago—he was pressuring me, and you didn’t seem _against_ it, so—”

“So you thought there wasn’t a point in telling me?”

“I was going to.”

“When?”

He’s silent. She pulls the ring off with a flourish. He sucks in a breath.

“Clarke, no. I was just trying to think of the best way to tell you. I’m sorry.”

She’s disgusted. With herself, with him, with his fucking creepy father. She’s disgusted at the fact that she’s been treated like a damn object this whole time. That he didn’t respect her enough to tell her this right away.

“Fuck you, Drew,” she says, and turns on the heel and walks away. She hears him calling her name, but she breaks into a run back to her car. And then she drives away.

—

First she goes to the hospital—the one Octavia was at. She goes to the ER desk and asks for Jasper. While waiting, some distant part of her tells her how irrational she’s being. She also doesn’t care.

She’s so tired of being tugged around by people in her life. She wants to tug back in return.

When Jasper comes out, Clarke presses the ring in his hand. The look on his face is priceless.

“Uh, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but are you on any… reality altering substances right now?”

“Pawn it,” Clarke tells him seriously. “For all it’s worth.”

—

She goes to work right afterwards and stews between patients. And stews and stews and stews.

Then she looks in her purse during break and realizes the copy of the will is gone.

Fuck. She left it at Drew’s house. Now she distinctly remembers it fluttering to the floor of the grand foyer while she shouted at him, blinded by tears and regret.

She needs it now. She has to look at it, the proof that she’s been tricked.

So when her shift is over—at three in the morning— she gets back in her car and drives back. She has no intention of actually talking to Drew about this.

Part of the benefit of knowing someone since they were young is knowing several ways into their house. Once upon a time, that kind of stealth was useful for tag. To bypass security through the back hedges. To use the always-slightly-ajar window of one of the second story guest bedrooms, which can be accessed by scaling a tree. All without being seen.

She walks silently through the house, knowing exactly which corridors to avoid and which to use. She’s not worried about Drew seeing her. His car wasn’t there when she arrived. He’s gone, and the Senator generally spends his time at home in his study.

She peeks down the staircase to the front foyer. Damn it. The paper isn’t there anymore. Which means Drew picked it up and brought it somewhere. His room, maybe?

She starts going that way instead.

And then she hears muffled voices. It’s far away—from the direction of the Senator’s study, actually. But one of the voices rises to a shout before tamping back down. And—and something about it is familiar.

Forgetting herself, she draws closer, clinging to the shadows in the hallways.

“... wasn’t me. How fucking stupid do you think I am? Why would I send something like that?”

Bellamy.

 _Bellamy_?

What the hell is Bellamy doing here? He should be at home upstate, or with Octavia at her house while she recovers. There’s no reason why he would be here, or why he would be speaking so frankly to the Senator, like they’ve had this kind of talk many times before. She’s not sure she’s ever seen Bellamy even exchange more than a few words with Cage Wallace.

“I don’t _want_ to believe it, Bellamy.” Cage pauses. “But I have to look at the facts. First, you talk to her for the first time in a year.” He tsks. “And you were doing so _well_.”

“She called _me_.”

“Still,” Cage says. “No one said you had to pick up. And don’t play dumb. We both know you recognized her number.”

Bellamy remains silent. And Clarke starts to understand. They’re talking about _her_.

“And then next thing we know, Drew tells me she’s calling off the wedding because she got anonymous mail with a copy of my mother’s will. With _this_ passage highlighted.”

Clarke hears the sound of paper fluttering for emphasis, and realizes with horror that the paper she’s looking for is in that room with them.

But why the _hell_ is Bellamy working with Cage?

“I mean, you have to admit it’s pretty damning,” Cage continues. “It looks to me a lot like someone is trying to sabotage this wedding. And well, you’re the only one who knows the whole story.”

“I can’t be the only one,” Bellamy says. “Anyone could have put it together.”

Cage goes on as if he hadn’t spoken. “And I thought you’d learned your lesson after your sister’s accident, but if not…”

“This has nothing to do with me,” Bellamy says. His voice has taken on a desperate edge. “You have to believe me. Why would I do something like this when I _know_ it would get back to you? You and I both know I didn’t do it. I’ve done everything you asked. _Everything_.”

“Except when you picked up her phone call.”

“That was a mistake. I thought she was in trouble. Don’t punish anyone else for my mistakes.”

“I know you didn’t do it, Bellamy,” Cage says, a smile in his voice. “Don’t worry.”

She can’t see any response from Bellamy’s end, but even his silence sounds relieved.

“But I need you to do something for me.”

A pause.

“I need you to leave town,” Cage says. Bellamy makes a noise of protest. “No, no, no, shut up. You can’t be here. You’ll only be a distraction to Clarke, and that’s the last thing I need while we work on getting her back on track. Go back upstate to your little kindergarten gig and forget all this happened.”

Bellamy’s voice is low and angry when he speaks again. “You put my sister on crutches. She just had surgery. She needs someone around while she recovers.”

“She doesn’t need _you_.”

“She won’t get anyone else,” Bellamy says furiously. “Her boyfriend is out of country. She’s too proud to ask, but she’s in _pain_. She can hardly move. I can’t leave her right now.”

There’s a long silence.

“Beg,” Cage says. His voice is oily.

Bellamy is silent for only one second before he obliges. “Please. Please don’t make me leave my sister.”

It tugs at her heartstrings. But she’s frozen. Frozen in place, unable to do anything but listen.

“Oh, alright,” Cage says. “You can stay, as long as you mind your own damn business and don’t leave your side of town. See, I’m not such a big asshole, am I?”

Bellamy doesn’t say anything.

“Thank me,” Cage says.

Bellamy doesn’t say anything still.

“I said, thank me.” A sharp edge to his voice now.

“Thank you,” Bellamy grinds out. The way he says it, it sounds more like _Fuck you_. Cage just laughs.

“You’re a good boy, Bellamy.” Clarke hears the sound of ice clinking in a glass. “Everyone will be happier this way. After all, you and Clarke never would have worked out. You’re too different. I won’t be surprised if in a few years you’re grateful that you’re in my employ.”

“I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

“Hmm.” He sounds like he’s drinking something, then smacks his lips. “Scotch? It’s quite good.”

“I’d rather die,” Bellamy says flatly. “Can I go now?”

“Of course,” Cage says. “Say hello to your sister for me. I hope she got those flowers I sent.”

Clarke shrinks back into the shadows just in time for the door of Cage’s study to open and Bellamy to stride out. She can only see his silhouette as he slams the door shut behind him, the gentle slope of his nose, the tension in his shoulders as he looks down the staircase, not bothering to look to the side where, if he squinted in the dark, he would see her standing still as a statue. He takes a deep, silent breath, and then descends the stairs. A minute later, she hears the front door close behind him.

Clarke turns and goes back the way she came, having forgotten completely about what she came here for, and now intent on where she’s going next.

—

Bellamy pulls up to Octavia’s apartment building and turns off the ignition. He hadn’t come straight back here. He’d gone to a twenty-four-hour grocery and picked up food for breakfast. He’d felt oddly numb while he walked down the aisles, clinically checking the due date on cartons of milk and grabbing a jar of Nutella as an afterthought. He’d checked his email with the free wifi, to see that the principal of the school had sent him a message with sympathy for his family emergency, telling him to take all the time he needed.

It’s now five in the morning. And suddenly his nerves are crashing down on him.

He hits his steering wheel, once, twice, thrice, careful to avoid the horn each time. His breathing becomes shallower as he sinks lower into his seat, knuckles aching and despair stealing over him.

Cage Wallace is never going to leave him alone.

The realization pierces through his chest. Bellamy’s going to be stuck under the senator’s thumb forever. Doing whatever he asks, whenever he asks it. Cage had implied it: _You’re in my employ_.

It’s only a matter of time until the man starts telling Bellamy to do other things, unrelated to Clarke. Bellamy’s imagination has run wild on this front. He’s thought of the Senator asking him to do his dirty work. Something illegal. And Bellamy will do it. Because he’s afraid of what will happen if he won’t.

And then Cage will have even more leverage over him, because he did something _illegal_.

He’s suddenly exhausted.

His eyes turn up to the fifth floor of the apartment building, where all the lights are off. Where Octavia is asleep. She hadn’t even noticed him leave. The Senator had called him at two in the morning and he’d had to drag himself out of bed for this emergency meeting. Now, he can’t wait to sink back into the pull-out couch and let the oblivion of sleep take him over.

He heads into the building, yawning as he jabs the button for the fifth floor in the elevator. A minute later, he steps out into the hall. He freezes when he notices someone standing by Octavia’s door.

They’re lingering in the shadows. His heart thunders before he hears her voice.

“Relax. It’s me.”

Clarke steps out. Bellamy relaxes infinitesimally. Because it’s just Clarke, but at the same time—it’s fucking _Clarke_. What’s she doing here? If Cage hears about this—

“You need to leave,” he tells her without preamble. He’s wound too tight from tonight to even try to be courteous.

“Bellamy—”

“I don’t care why you’re here. Get out.”

She approaches him, and suddenly he registers that she’s been crying. The makeup around her eyes is smudged, her cheeks blotchy. He releases a breath. He wants to ask. He shouldn’t. He needs to boot her out. For her safety. For Octavia’s safety. For everyone’s own good.

Besides, she’s probably been crying because of fucking Drew and that stupid will. Nothing else.

“I need to talk to—”

He gives her an ugly smile. “Go see a damn therapist.” He tries to sidestep her, to go for the door.

She blocks his way.

Hysteria is tightening his chest. “Clarke, I can’t do this right now with you. Please. Leave me alone.”

He hates that his voice breaks, that his eyes burn. He hates that Clarke sees it, and that she lets him past her, to the door.

But she doesn’t leave. He can feel her presence right behind him, watching as he fumbles for his keys.

“I know what happened,” she says softly.

Oh, the vaguest of statements. Why not.

“With Cage Wallace,” she says.

His fingers turn to ice. He drops his set of keys.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says evenly.

“Bellamy.” Her voice is quiet, sad. “I was there tonight. I was in his mansion looking for the copy of his mother’s will. Nobody knew I was there. I used that special way inside… you know the one.”

He does know the one. What he doesn’t know, is whether he’s dreaming right now. Clarke goes on.

“I heard you… talking.”

He stares, wide-eyed, at the door, the fallen keychain forgotten.

“And I need,” she takes a shuddering breath, “I need you to tell me what happened three years ago, Bellamy. I’m trying to piece everything together. I think I have most of it. But what I need right now is to hear the full story.”

“You need to leave.”

“I’m not leaving.”

Bellamy spins around to face her, to find her so, so close to his chest. He grips her shoulders.

“Clarke, if you heard him, then you should know that he might know you’re here—if your car is outside—”

“My car isn’t outside,” Clarke says clearly. “I left it at Wells’ place. And I borrowed Jasper’s car.”

Bellamy blinks, momentarily distracted. “He let you borrow his car?” He finds that hard to believe. Everyone knows Clarke’s not the most careful driver.

“Let’s just say he owed me,” Clarke says. She tugs at her collar, and Bellamy realizes she’s wearing an oversize hoodie and dark jeans. Not her typical attire. “Bellamy, I took every precaution to make sure no one would know I was here. It’s okay. We’re alone. You’re safe.”

Her words are reassuring enough to slow his breathing. His eyes grow wet. She looks up at him, smiling sadly, and then puts her arms around him.

Automatically, he returns the hug. He can faintly smell the shampoo she uses—the same one that he used to keep in his bathroom years ago, because she was around his place so often.

He takes a deep, shuddering breath. “He made me swear not to tell anyone. Especially not you.”

“I don’t care what he told you,” Clarke says. “He clearly doesn’t keep his word on things. Why should you?” She steps back to look him in the eye. Her gaze is soft. “I’m here now. You don’t have to do this alone.”

And that breaks him. He can’t explain why those words hit him like this. It’s like a dam has split down the middle, a dam he’s been holding together by himself for years while water sprayed through the cracks, yet he kept trying anyway. But here she comes along, and she rests a gentle hand on his shoulder, and she tells him, _Let go. Let the water come. We can swim._

He buries his face in his hands. Distantly, he hears the jingle of his keys being scooped off the floor. The turn of the lock. The door opening.

He lets Clarke lead him inside the apartment. He lets her guide him to the pull out couch that he’d crawled out of hours ago.

She sits with him there, right across from him.

“Tell me everything,” Clarke says.

He does.

He starts out stoically, with the first time Cage had approached him, back when Abby was going to trial for the murder of Jake Griffin. He talks in monotone, clinically, about what he was told to do. And everything that happened after that. All the blackmail. All the parts of his life that Cage Wallace had wheedled his way into.

At some point, Clarke starts to cry. She takes his hands in her own, but she doesn’t tear her glassy eyes from his. Tears roll down her face, but she stays silent.

Clarke crying always had the capacity to do in him. Up til now, he’d been doing well. Now he hesitates.

“Keep going,” she hiccups, running her hand along his forearm.

“You don’t have to hear this part if you don’t want to.”

“I want to,” she says determinedly. “We’re in this together.”

So he keeps going. He tears up too, but he talks through it, until his voice is raw. He tells her exactly what happened in the three years that they have been estranged. He talks until the sun comes up. She listens until even after.

—

Clarke wakes up the next morning to the sound of sizzling on the stove.

It takes her a moment to orient herself. To realize she’s lying on the pull out couch in Octavia’s apartment. She cracks open her eyelids to see Bellamy is fast asleep right beside her, their legs tangled up under the blanket.

She feels raw inside. Like she just had the hardest, most body-wracking cry of her life, and has been emotionally and physically spent from it, but at the same time, it was cleansing.

Then a voice blares through the quiet.

“I don’t even know what to say.”

Bellamy bolts up into sitting position so fast he nearly knocks into Clarke’s head in the process.

“Octavia,” he says, looking at the girl leaning on her crutches in front of the bed. “You shouldn’t be up.”

“ _You_ shouldn’t be doing a lot of things, but you don’t hear me talking about it.” Octavia raises her eyebrows meaningfully at the two of them. She turns around and hobbles back to the kitchen area on her crutches. “Before you offer, I don’t need you to make me breakfast. I already ate. But I do have leftover eggs. You know, if you want them.” She tosses a look over her shoulder at Clarke. “You too, I guess.”

Clarke doesn’t miss the way Octavia catalogues her clothes. Or rather, probably the fact that she’s wearing them.

Bellamy throws the blankets off and scrubs his hands over his face. He curses. “I slept too long.”

Clarke pries his hands away. “Bellamy, we barely slept four hours.”

“You should go.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He looks at her, flatly. “Don’t you have work?”

She stays silent, because he’s right. Shit. She’d forgotten. She has to be there in a few hours.

But she can’t—she can’t just act like everything’s the same. Not now that she knows what happened. She can’t just walk into work and smile at people like her whole world didn’t just change.

“You have to go to work,” Bellamy says, voice rough. “We have to act like everything is the same.”

She looks up at him, her heart hurting. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“What?”

“You could have told me when Cage first talked to you,” she whispers, so that Octavia won’t hear from where she’s banging around the kitchen. “We could have figured it out together!”

“You were going through so much already,” Bellamy whispers back. “I’d never seen you that much in pain. Your dad dead, your mom on trial… Cage was holding the evidence over our heads. If I told you, he would’ve made things worse for your mom. I just wanted to make it better.”

He’d tried to take care of everything himself. Of course he had.

“You made everything better just by being there,” she tells him, and his eyes close as if in pain. “When you left, I…”

She trails off because she doesn’t know what to say; she doesn’t know how to put into words that kind of pain. For ages after he left her, Clarke had wondered if he’d actually fallen out of love with her a while ago, and was just sticking around during her mom’s trial out of pity, and if that’s why he broke up with her immediately after. She wondered when exactly he stopped loving her. It had tortured her for the longest time.

“I never thought I would lose you,” she finally says.

He’s watching her with sad eyes. She thinks he understands what she’s thinking, so she stops trying to verbalize it. He reaches for her. He takes her wrist in his hands, and he runs his thumb along her pulse.

“You didn’t.”

They keep sitting there, their foreheads bent so close they’re almost touching. She missed this the most. This feeling of—unexplained kinship that they have had since they were young. That somehow, despite having very different lives, there’s some inherent understanding that binds them together.

Clarke’s phone chimes.

They both jump. Bellamy pulls away from her. She fishes the phone out of her purse, which is sitting on the floor, and checks her texts. There’s a lot from last night. Several from Drew, most of them pleading to give him a chance to explain.

The last few are just asking her where she is. That he swung by her place, and she wasn’t there.

Her phone starts ringing, and it’s him.

She huffs and starts to put it away.

“You should answer it,” Bellamy says, and she looks up, surprised.

“I didn’t think you’d say that.” Her lips flatten into a line.

“I never said I liked it,” he replies. “But Clarke. Think about what will happen if he gets desperate looking for you, and you’re not answering.”

She realizes it as he’s saying it. “He’ll talk to his dad.”

Bellamy nods grimly.

That’s the thing about Drew. His fear of his father outweighs his love for Clarke. She’s starting to see that now.

She picks up before she can think about it too much.

“Hello?”

“Clarke?” Drew’s voice is immediate and urgent. “Oh, thank god. I couldn’t find you at your place. I was starting to worry—”

“I’m fine,” Clarke says, idly picking at the fraying edge of her hoodie. “I’m at a friend’s. I just don’t want to talk to you.”

Bellamy snorts quietly.

Drew doesn’t say anything for a second. “I get that,” he says. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ll give you space.”

Clarke doesn’t know what to tell him. Firstly, because she’s only now thinking about the horrific possibility that he knew about the blackmailing Cage had done to Bellamy. He didn’t tell her about the will; why not about that too? It doesn’t sound like him, but she’s not sure of anything anymore.

And secondly, because she’s not sure _giving her_ _space_ is good enough anymore.

She risks a sidelong glance at Bellamy. He’s not looking at her anymore; his head is turned towards the window. From her viewpoint, she can see the muscle ticking in his jaw, his eyelashes coming up and down as he blinks. His hair is a mess of curls, illuminated by the sun slanting through the blinds; it looks black as night even in the light of day.

Now that she knows the truth—that he broke up with her not because he didn’t love her, but just the opposite—she’s not sure of anything anymore. Even though it’s been three years. Three years, where they both tried to get over each other.

What if he succeeded? She wonders. What if he doesn’t think of her in _that_ way anymore?

She remembers a time when she used to come out of the shower with only a towel on and he wouldn’t say a word, but his eyes would darken. When he would run his fingers through her hair after a night spent together. When she would kiss him and her hands would curl over his chest and she’d hear the frantic thumping of his heart.

She wonders if the sight of her can still make his heart beat faster, or if that’s just her now. And even if it is, she’s not sure she’s got the strength to move on.

“Clarke?” Drew says on the phone, and she snaps back to attention. “You still there?”

“Yeah,” she says weakly, looking away from Bellamy again.

Octavia hollers from the kitchen. “Are you going to eat these damn eggs or what?”

Clarke hurriedly covers the receiver and Bellamy half-stands up in alarm, but Drew appears too occupied with the question he wanted to ask to notice.

“Do you know who sent you the will?” he says.

“No,” Clarke says shortly. “Does it matter?”

“It does to my dad,” Drew says with a sigh.

Clarke shakes her head, even though he can’t see. “I wouldn’t hold your breath for that wedding within the year.”

Without waiting for a response, she hangs up and tosses the phone back in her bag.

“I don’t think he knows,” Bellamy says. Clarke looks at him sharply. He shrugs. “About what his dad did.”

Clarke doesn’t think so, either, but it’s a relief hearing it from Bellamy too. She sighs. “What now?”

“Well, there’s eggs,” he offers. She looks at him, and can’t help but match his half-smile.

They go to the kitchen. Octavia’s gone now; Clarke can hear the shower turn on from the bathroom. But true to her word, she’s left scrambled eggs on the stove. As Clarke fills two cups with milk instead of their usual coffee—because it reminds her of when they were kids eating breakfast together on weekends—Bellamy divides the eggs in roughly half on two plates, and pushes the slightly bigger portion towards her. She grabs his plate before he can pull it towards himself, and uses her fork to scrape the extra on hers onto his. So that they have equal portions.

“I don’t need it,” he says automatically.

“Shut up, Bellamy,” she says fondly. They sit beside each other, not across from each other, at the small dining table. They eat in companionable silence, their elbows brushing now and then.

Clarke downs her milk before she says it.

“We don’t have to live like this forever.”

He pauses with his glass half-tipped up towards his lips.

“We can bring him down,” she tells him. “Cage, I mean.”

His lips flatten into a line and he lowers his glass. “Clarke.”

“You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Now that we both know, we can figure out a way to stop him.”

“Clarke.”

“All we need is solid evidence of what he’s done. He’s got such dirty hands, he must’ve left his tracks somewhere.”

“Clarke,” Bellamy says, but louder this time. “You don’t get it. I’ve spent years going down this rabbit hole. Don’t you think this ever occurred to me? I _tried_ to find dirt on him. But this guy is in a different class. He doesn’t need to cover his tracks, because he makes sure he never makes any.”

She frowns. “I don’t understand.”

Bellamy swirls his milk. “Here’s an example. When the guy calls me, he’s on an encrypted phone, with some sort of software that changes his voice. And even then, he speaks in code. He makes sure everything he says could be explained away in some way or another, if somehow I was recording him.”

Clarke’s already shaking her head. “Okay, but there must be something else. I could tell my mom.”

Bellamy smiles somewhat sardonically. “She’d believe the guy who broke her daughter’s heart? Yeah, okay.”

“I’m serious. I would convince her.”

“You don’t have evidence,” Bellamy points out. “At best, she’d think I was tricking you. At worst, she’d tell Cage. They’re friends, remember? And then he might decide to pull out her court case again.”

Clarke falls silent. He’s right; going to her mom first isn’t the best option. She switches tactics.

“All the things he’s done,” she says. “There must be a paper trail somewhere. Someone out there who would talk, for the right amount of money.”

Bellamy says, “Maybe.”

She can tell he’s not convinced. Not even enthused by the possibility that has her so excited. Her brow furrows.

“Why do you not seem to care?” she asks, curiously. “That there’s a possibility you could be free?”

In profile, his eyelashes sweep down, and he swallows. “I’ve tried to free myself,” he says. “It never pans out. And _he_ always finds out about it, one way or another.”

“But Bellamy—”

“ _Please_ , Clarke,” he interrupts, and she recognizes the desperate edge he’s barely concealing. “Stop.”

He doesn’t say anything else, but Clarke understands the subtext. It’s all the things he told her last night, the horrific things Cage Wallace did to him, to his career, to his friends, to his family to keep him quiet. Of course Bellamy had fought back at first. But after his efforts did nothing but hurt the people around him, he’d stopped.

She glances at the clock. She needs to get going if she wants to be at work on time. She stands. He remains sitting.

“This isn’t over,” she tells him.

He doesn’t say anything. Struck with the urge, she leans down and kisses his temple.

When she straightens back up, she finds him looking up at her with wide eyes.

“I’ll see you soon,” she says, and turns to leave.

On her way out, she intercepts Octavia coming out of the bathroom, wringing her hair out with a towel. She steps in the younger woman’s way.

Octavia arches one brow. “What?”

“Don’t tell anyone I was here,” Clarke says lowly. “Don’t even mention it.”

Octavia gives her a hard look.

“I’m not helping you cheat on your fiance with my brother, Clarke. Bellamy might not have a sense of self-preservation, but—”

“I’m not engaged anymore,” Clarke interrupts. She shows Octavia her unadorned hands. “And what I’m asking you to do isn’t about that anyway. This is bigger than me and Bellamy. Alright?”

Octavia regards her suspiciously.

“Then what is it about?”

Clarke opens her mouth and then hesitates. “Ask your brother,” she says. If Bellamy wants to tell her, he will. If he doesn’t, Clarke trusts that he’ll make up a suitable lie. “I have to go.” She brushes past her and heads for the door, her mind whirring.

This story isn’t over. Bellamy may have accepted his fate, but that doesn’t mean Clarke will.

—

When Clarke gets to the hospital, she stays in her car for a minute to call Nathan Miller.

He’s more a friend of Bellamy’s than hers, but he’s a police officer, and therefore he’ll be able to help her. When he answers, she asks him to dig up any information he can on the other people involved in the crash that brought Octavia to the hospital.

Then she goes into the hospital, and Dr. Singh, one of the surgeons, smiles as she sweeps past.

“Hi, Dr. Griffin. You look tired today.”

“I didn’t get a lot of sleep,” Clarke automatically says. She flips through the charts for the day several times before she really begins to think over Dr. Singh’s comment.

Moreso, she starts to think over _Dr. Singh_. She’s always at Cage Wallace’s charity dinners. Just the other day, she and Clarke had been discussing the huge gala Cage was holding in a few weeks. And it suddenly occurs to her that maybe Dr. Singh’s interest in talking to her was never just friendly. Maybe she was always just keeping an eye on her.

She slowly backs away from the charts.

—

Miller gets back to her pretty fast.

“The others in the crash work for a construction company,” Miller reports. Clarke scribbles down their names. McCreary… Diyoza… Shaw. She thanks him and looks up the construction company on Google. Eligius Construction is based here in the city, which makes sense, but… she alters her search to include mentions of Cage Wallace.

And here, the first result gives her pause. This construction company is the same one on contract to build the new library. The one that Cage is having a fundraising gala for in a week.

Clarke calls Wells.

“Can you send a message for me?” she asks him without preamble. “Tell him something happened. Don’t mention my name in the message.”

“Okay,” Wells yawns, immediately understanding. Due to Clarke’s newfound paranoia, Wells has been her main mode of communication with Bellamy for the past few days. He doesn’t ask why Clarke doesn’t just call him herself. For that matter, he doesn’t ask why she’s contacting her ex in the first place, or why the hell she just called _him_ using a disposable cell phone.

Theirs is the easiest and most reliable of friendships; Wells doesn’t ask because he trusts that Clarke has a good reason for not telling. And that she _will_ tell him one day, when she can.

“Thanks.” Clarke’s about to hang up before Wells sighs, and she smiles at the familiar sound. It’s the long drawn-out sigh of a guy whose lifelong best friend has a track record of getting herself in trouble.

“Whatever you two are doing, I hope you’re being careful.”

She presses the phone harder to her ear. “I am.”

She hangs up, and waits for a message back.

Wells doesn’t reply, and she texts him a bunch of question marks after an hour, to which he responds, _I did what you asked. Get a grip_.

Which means Bellamy hasn’t responded to him. She mutters some insults and tosses the phone away before going to the kitchen for something to eat.

She’s licking peanut butter straight off the knife when she hears a cough behind her.

She wheels around, only to find Bellamy Blake leaning on her kitchen counter. She presses a hand to her chest.

“God, Bellamy, do you _have_ to be so dramatic?”

“I could have come up behind you and said ‘boo’,” Bellamy says gravely. “But I figured this would scare you less.” He straightens. She takes him in; he’s wearing a dark purple cap, a white tee and and his usual cargo pants. His hair looks damp, curling around the ears and at the nape of his neck. Freshly showered, by the looks of him.

She looks away. “How did you get in?”

“You know how I got in.”

She does. The spare key in the shed, that unlocks the back door. It’s been her trick for years and he’s familiar with it. She understands why he wouldn’t have come to the front door—he’s just as paranoid as she is.

“Sorry,” he says, and she looks up to find him watching. “I should’ve warned you I was coming.”

She waves a hand dismissively, already over it. “It’s fine. Better we talk in person, anyway.” She tells him what she’s found out.

He just braces his arms on her counter. “So?”

She frowns at his lack of enthusiasm for the information she’s found. “So these Eligius people were involved in your sister’s car crash. They also have ties with Cage Wallace. You don’t think that’s suspicious, Bellamy?”

He arches a brow. “Obviously I think that’s suspicious, _Clarke_. I’ve noticed a hundred different coincidences like that throughout the years. But there’s never evidence to back it up.”

“Then we’ll find some.” She bites her lip. “Miles Shaw in particular—He lost most of his family a few years back. At the same time, he quit being a pilot and started working in _construction_? Something’s not right about his story. We might be able to get someone like him to talk.”

“You could barely get _me_ to talk. How are you going to get to him?”

She glares at him. “We’ll think of something.”

He scoffs, and she turns to the sink with a vengeance. She hates to admit it, but he’s right. If Shaw is in a situation anything like Bellamy’s, there’s no way he’d talk to a complete stranger about it.

A pang goes through her chest at the realization that there might not be a quick fix. These past few days, she’s been working under the assumption that if she’s just _smart_ enough, she’ll be able to put the Senator in prison in no time. That they’ll both get their lives back.

But now… it’s dawning on her that this process of collecting evidence while evading Cage’s attention could take _years_. Years, where she has to continue living this lie.

“Clarke,” Bellamy says softly from behind her. _Right_ behind her. She hadn’t heard him approach. Then his hand is brushing hers, and she realizes she’s been clutching the butter knife into a fist. She turns her head to see him gently pry her fist open. He takes the knife from her and drops it in the sink. He’s close. Too close, her head is starting to spin. She closes her eyes. She can smell his aftershave.

He says, “It’s okay.”

Her eyes open. “It’s not. I won’t let you suffer because you were trying to help my family. I won’t.”

“You don’t owe me anything. I chose this.”

“Well, _I_ didn’t,” she cries, and turns to face him. “I didn’t get to choose what I would’ve done, three years ago. If I’d let you go or if I’d take my chances with my mom’s trial. _Nobody_ gave me a choice. Not Cage Wallace. Not even you.”

He blinks, three times, in rapid succession. She recognizes the guilt that instantly shadows his expression. “Clarke—”

She cuts him off. “Neither of us had good options. I’ll never blame you for that. But I’m _done_ playing Cage’s games. I want my life back.”

Her voice cracks in the last sentence; she can hardly even imagine having her old life back. Not when everything she tries to do seems so futile right now.

“Your old life,” Bellamy says slowly. He has become very still. “Things can’t go back to how they were.”

“Yes, they can!” She searches his eyes, looking for anything, even a flicker of nostalgia. She doesn’t want to say that, though—she doesn’t want to sound pathetic by saying, _I want us to be back together_. She clears her throat.

“My old life,” she says evenly. “I want to stop having to look over my shoulder and wondering if people around us are going to get hurt because we—we—talk.”

His eyes flash with a myriad of emotions so quick she can’t identify any of them, but it ends on a blank stare. She keeps staring right back at him, trying to figure out what’s going on behind that mask. If he feels the same way. Or has that part of their story ended?

“What do you want me to say, Clarke?” he says after a long period of silence. He sounds half hopeless, half frustrated.

“I want you to say that you’re with me!”

His jaw works. She drops her hands, her eyes burning.

“Fine. I’m still going to fight this, even if you’ve given up. Even if you’ve given up on—on us.”

His lips part and he inhales. It makes her pause.

“ _Did_ you give up on us?” she demands. He closes his eyes briefly, and when he opens them again, they’re wet.

“Yes,” he rasps.

She’s not sure she heard him right. She stares at him until the word sets itself into her brain. And then—it feels like a slap in the face, and she supposes it’s too late, because she already looks pathetic now. She looks at him straight-on. She’s poured her heart out. She’s not going to stop now.

“Fine.” Her voice is surprisingly steady. “But I’m going to fight him and put him away for good, so that you and I will finally have that choice. We’ll finally have every choice, whether we take it or not.”

Her eyes are blurred with tears, and she turns away.

“It was a year ago,” Bellamy says from behind her.

There’s something to his voice that makes her stop in her tracks.

“We were at your mom’s and Kane’s wedding reception,” he says roughly, his every word slow and measured. She turns around, but he’s staring at the floor. “By the end of that night, you’d stopped trying to pretend that we were together. Right before I left… saw you laughing. And you looked _happy_.” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “That’s when. I stopped looking for a miracle and I gave up.”

His eyes are unnaturally bright when he looks up.

“But that doesn’t mean I stopped loving you.”

She can’t breathe. She takes a step forward.

He holds up a hand to stop her. Now he sounds like he’s about to cry.

“Three years is a long time. I know things are different now. But I’ll always be your friend. I’ll always be there if you need me. I never, ever gave up on _that_.”

His words evoke a strange rise of emotion in her chest. The way he’s looking at her makes her think of when they were kids, when they met because his little toddler sister broke a window on the Griffin family’s property because she didn’t know any better, and this gangly boy came to apologize for her. Clarke had overheard the conversation from the next room as he stood at the door and offered to repaint the fence in exchange.

Clarke’s parents had agreed and sent him out into the hot afternoon sun with a bucket of white paint and a brush. He’d been painting all of ten minutes before Clarke came out with her own paint brush.

He resisted her help at first, but then slowly he grew friendly towards her as the hours passed and it was clear she wasn’t going to get bored and run off. When it was clear that she actually _did_ want to paint.

She wasn’t the best at it, though; she missed some spots. He covered them without a word. She hauled out the radio to make the time pass quicker. Then, with her paler skin, she started to get sunburned; so he put his own cap on her head. Clarke accepted it, and sent him home afterwards with cookies Wells had made for her.

Since that day, they were friends.

Later, Clarke learned why he offered to repaint the long fence; he didn’t want anyone else finding out what happened. He didn’t want his sister drawing any attention, because she wasn’t supposed to exist. Aurora Blake had fallen on hard times and had only managed to secure an apartment in a building when she lied and said that she had only one child. They’d have been evicted if the landlord somehow learned that Bellamy had a _sister_.

Later, Bellamy learned why Clarke had been sitting around with nothing to do in her house that day. She’d been lonely. A friend from school wasn’t allowed to see her anymore because their parents didn’t like Clarke’s. Sometimes being the child of a senator was not being able to escape their politics. That day, she was looking for an escape, some purpose that had nothing to do with her parents.

With their two very different backgrounds, no one quite seemed to understand how Clarke and Bellamy had forged this strange companionship. And that was fine by her. Their relationship had always seemed undefinable.

And Clarke knows that’s what Bellamy means right now too. That he’s always going to be here and love her in whatever way she needs, because that’s what they’ve always done for each other.

“Jasper pawned my ring,” she tells Bellamy.

He blinks.

She scrambles to elaborate. “When I found out about this will thing, and broke off the engagement, I let Jasper pawn it. Isn’t that funny? I wasn’t thinking.” She sighs. “It doesn’t matter. The point is… I was surprised that I did it. So quickly, just gave it to Jasper. Then I realized why.”

He watches her warily.

“I was looking for a reason to end it, Bellamy. And I don’t think I can start it again. Not now that I know the truth from you. I can’t keep going on the way things are if there’s still a chance for us.”

He’s silent for a long time, his shoulders rising and falling faster than normal. “I thought you loved him.”

Maybe she did. She loves a lot of people. And she’s been in so many relationships, each different from the last. But…

“There’s no one I love the way I love you,” she tells him, truthfully.

His eyelashes flutter. He doesn’t know what to do with the information. But Clarke does. She closes the distance between them.

He tilts his head near sideways at the last second before their lips touch, so that his cap doesn’t get in the way.

Later, she’ll realize that it was their first true kiss in three years.

But in the moment, it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like it was only yesterday that she kissed Bellamy goodbye. His mouth is as familiar to her as her own. She remembers exactly how to fit her lips against his, and it’s nearly effortless. It’s muscle memory.

She pulls his cap off while they’re kissing and lets it drop to the ground. She pulls away from his kiss and runs her hand through his hair, slowly, looking him in the eyes while she does.

He stares back, his expression growing more and more intense until her hand gets to the back of his head. She tugs, and his eyes fall shut. He kisses her again, softly. More deliberately, like he too is realizing how long it’s been. Now they’re consciously reacquainting. His hands slide around her waist. Hers curve over his jaw.

They part again, and stare at each other, wide-eyed and short of breath. Wrecked from the gentlest of kisses.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Bellamy rasps.

“Why?” she whispers, although she already knows the answer.

“It’ll make it harder to let go.”

She considers that. Taking Cage down—getting their lives back—could take a long time. It might not even ever happen. After this stolen moment in their kitchen, they’ll have to go back to their separate lives, living in fear.

And yet… she lifts her eyes to his. “I’m not planning to let you go.”

Then she grabs him by the collar, and she’s not sure which one of them leans forward first, but they’re kissing again. She’s pulling him fiercely with her as she walks backwards, demonstrating her point. He helplessly follows, kissing her whenever she halts in her steps.

Then her back hits the kitchen table. Without hesitation, Bellamy’s hands slide from her waist, down her ass, to the back of her thighs. Before she can register it, he’s lifted her on top of the table. She spreads her legs wide as they continue to kiss, but he doesn’t come close enough, so she reaches forward blindly to tug him sharply forward by the belt.

In her haste, she tugs too hard; his forehead bumps into hers, and his next kiss pushes her backwards, so she’s arching under him, her hands braced on the tabletop on either side of her, and he’s bent over her. His hands fall over hers, and they kiss sloppily like that for a minute, her bent back so far she’s almost lying down, him halfway leaned over the table to kiss her.

He breaks away, and they gasp for air, his forehead pressed against her cheek. She’s suddenly very aware of the burning between her legs.

But she feels rather than hears him inhale, like he’s going to say something.

“Bellamy,” she snarls. “I swear to God, if you’re about to say we shouldn’t fuck right now, I’m going to— going to—”

He waits while she stutters, and then: “I was going to say that I want to eat you out until you scream, but now I’m interested in what would happen if I didn’t.”

“Oh,” she gasps in anticipation, and runs a hand through her hair, fanning the back of her neck. “You don’t want to find out.”

He kisses her hard. “Since you asked so nicely.”

He starts to mouth down her neck, one hand pulling her up into an upright sitting position. He trails kisses down her collarbone over her shirt, and then noses his way between her breasts, and then down her stomach.

Then he roughly pulls her to the edge of the counter. He drops to his knees.

He looks up at her. His eyes are dark, hot, almost angry under his curls, his lips swollen and red from hers. He stares at her unblinkingly. He continues to stare at her as he very deliberately hooks his thumbs in the waistband of her leggings. He doesn’t look away as he peels them, along with her underwear down her legs, until they’re dropped to the floor. He’s still looking her in the eye when he yanks her knees apart.

It’s only then that he looks away. But only to look at a different part of her body.

She moans out loud, and then louder when he buries his head there without ceremony. He breathes like an astronaut who’s just made it back to Earth.

She tilts her head up as he starts to set a rhythm, and she starts to move a little on the tabletop. Frissons of pleasure shoot up her spine, and she closes her eyes to enjoy the sensation, to fully immerse herself in the feeling of his lips, his tongue, his nose, pressed up against the most intimate part of her body.

She leans back on one hand to grant him better access, her legs falling even wider open, her feet hooking over his shoulders. Her other hand grips the back of his head to keep him there. Wildly out of control, she pushes his head against herself maybe _too_ hard. He makes a noise of protest and she lets go immediately.

“Sorry.” Her hand flutters around to grip his bicep instead. “You need to breathe.”

“I really don’t,” he groans, and she catches a glimpse of his glistening wet mouth before his curly head disappears between her pale thighs again.

As the pleasure starts to mount, she scoots all the way to the edge of the counter, so far that she’s barely even sitting on it anymore; most of her weight is supported by his large palms holding up her thighs, her legs dangling over his back, her toes curling whenever he does something particularly _unbearable_.

“Bellamy,” she hiccups part way through, remembering how much he likes being told how he’s doing. “S—so good.”

He doesn’t answer—he can’t—but one of his hands squeezes her thigh. He rises a little on his haunches, and the new angle makes it so she can bend over him and wrap her arms around his neck, her fingers curling in his hair, her legs crossing around his shoulder blades so that her entire body is more or less cocooning his head. She keens loudly and pants and pants and pants, staring wide-eyed ahead at the opposite wall, not really seeing anything, just feeling him under her, in her, lashing her with his tongue, winding her up tighter and tighter.

It’s a relief when she unravels. Overwhelmingly strong, so that she’s shaking as she comes down. He’s right there for her as wave after wave flutters over her. She heaves a sob, then presses the back of her hand against her mouth to repress the next one, because it’s almost too loud in the quiet of the kitchen. She pushes away from his mouth when it gets to be an overabundance of sensation.

“Sorry,” she hears Bellamy say. His voice is wrecked, and he’s panting too. “Too much.”

She places her weight entirely back on the counter. Bellamy’s still there, his head leaning against her knee. She can’t see his expression from her aerial view; she runs her hands over the tops of his shoulders, up his throat, and leans down to kiss the top of his curly haired head. “You’re never too much. Ever.”

His breathing hitches; it’s not really a statement about sex, and he knows it.

She feels him press his lips against her calf. Still wet.

She leans back on her hands and stares up at her kitchen lights. This moment feels kind of surreal. Floaty. Happy, just the two of them in her kitchen, breathing in and out.

She nudges him in the side with her heel. “Well, you lied.”

She can almost hear his frown from below.

“You said you’d eat me out until I screamed. I didn’t scream.”

He huffs a laugh against her knee. “Tell that to my burst eardrum.”

She laughs, too. “Poor baby. Come up here and I’ll examine you.” He does, still licking his lips, his eyes sparkling as he takes her in: giggly, flushed, satisfied, spread out on the table under him. But she’s far from finished with this encounter—

The doorbell rings.

They both freeze. They stare at each other in silence, and the doorbell rings again.

This time they spring into motion. Bellamy takes a few steps back, and Clarke jumps off the table, haphazardly tugging her leggings back up. She runs to the window and peeks out to the street.

Drew’s car is parked in the driveway.

Bellamy mutters a curse from behind her. “I should go.”

“No!” She grabs his arm. “You don’t need to. I’ll send him away.”

“What if he wants to talk to you?”

“I’ll tell him I’m busy,” she says. “I’ll get him out the door quickly, okay? Just—stay in the kitchen. Out of sight.”

He sighs, ripping a paper towel from the stand to wipe at his jaw, and nods.

The doorbell rings again. Clarke splashes water over her face in the sink, then scampers for it, flattening down her hair as best she can. She checks herself in the mirror as she goes. Presentable enough. She opens the door, ready to speak to Drew.

But it’s his father on the other side.

“Hello, Clarke,” Cage says with a genial smile. Clarke is so caught off guard she can’t say a thing. All she can do is smile at him back, a wooden smile, while her eyes dart to Drew’s car and back. What—?

“Not who you were expecting?” Cage is studying her carefully. She widens her smile.

“Well, I don’t get visited by Senators other than my mom very often. What can I do for you?”

He gestures in. “May I come inside?”

She hesitates.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Cage says, and peers around the doorframe. “Do you have guests? I didn’t see any other cars in your driveway.”

“No,” Clarke manages. “No, I don’t have guests. Come on in.”

She prays that Bellamy has heard his voice and left.

Cage steps into the foyer of her townhouse and immediately starts walking around it, strolling like he owns the place, examining the paintings on the walls.

“These are beautiful,” he says. “You made them yourself?”

Clarke clasps her hands together. “Most of them are mine, yes.”

“I’d love if you’d let me display some of them at my gala next week.”

She blinks. “The—gala?” She’d nearly forgotten.

Cage toes off his shoes and strolls further, into the living room. Clarke keeps an eye on the doorway to the kitchen. “Yes,” he says. “It’s a fundraiser for the new library we’re building for the city, and it’s also my birthday, as it turns out.” He shoots her a smile. “It would be an honour if my future daughter-in-law displayed some of her artwork there.”

Her smile slips. “I’d love to, but Drew and I aren’t actually—”

“Oh, I know you broke off the engagement.” Cage lifts a photo of her and Wells off the fireplace mantle and examines it. “That’s what I came to talk with you about.”

Clarke doesn’t trust herself to speak.

He sets the photo down and turns to her. “It wasn’t really his fault, that whole thing. I _asked_ him to keep the will a secret. Family affairs—private, you know.” He smiles again. “You understand that, don’t you?”

She swallows. “Yes,” she manages, because what else is she supposed to say?

He keeps circling around the room, while Clarke stands near the doorway of the kitchen attempting to look blase. “So I hope you’ll reconsider the wedding.”

Her lips thin, and she can’t help it. “Would you still want me to marry him if it happened after he turned thirty?”

He puts on a look of shock. “Of course. It’d be an honour to officially make you part of our family.” He pauses. “But I’ll admit it would be helpful to get you two married within the year. That inheritance… it’s all my mother left Drew.” He shakes his head as if very sad. “I want him to have it. Don’t you? Don’t you love him enough for that?”

Bullshit, Clarke thinks. Bellamy had already told her the truth. Cage Wallace wants to snatch the money from his son’s fingers, and Drew is too under his control to stop him.

“I’ll think about it,” she says.

He smiles. “Great. Thank you. That’s all I wanted to hear. Just know that Drew is very sorry about this whole thing. He’ll get on his knees and beg you to forgive him, he loves you that much.” He looks around. “Before I go, can I get some water? I’m a bit parched.”

Clarke’s heart leaps. She starts forward. “I’ll get it, you can stay here—”

“Is this your kitchen?” He strides ahead of her, and before she can stop him, he’s around the doorway.

She scampers after him, and breathes a silent sigh of relief to find the kitchen vacated. She grabs Cage a glass and fills it with water from the sink. He takes it and drinks. He smacks his lips and smiles at her again. She smiles back. The motion is starting to hurt her facial muscles.

Still smiling, Cage asks, “Whose hat is that on the floor?”

Clarke’s heart stops. But on the outside, she just looks in the direction he’s pointing. And there’s Bellamy’s cap, still on the floor from where Clarke had pulled it off his head while kissing him fifteen minutes ago.

“Oh,” she says. Her voice sounds horribly mechanical. “That’s Wells’.”

“And it’s on your kitchen floor?”

“He was here a while ago and took it off. He left in a hurry. It must’ve fallen off the table.”

Cage is still smiling. “Your face looks a little flushed. I noticed that when I walked in. Are you alright?”

“Thank you for your concern, but I’m fine.” She can’t help the razor’s edge from creeping into her last words.

A beat.

Cage sets his glass in the sink. “It was good to talk to you, Clarke. I hope you’ll make the right decision.”

Clarke makes a noncommittal noise. There’s no more talk between them. She shows him to the door, and watches him walk to Drew’s car and drive away.

Only then does she shut the door and sag against it. Her heart is still trying to leap out of her chest from the close call.

—

Bellamy hasn’t actually left. He heard Cage come, and went out of sight. As soon as the door closes and he hears the vehicle pull out of the driveway, Bellamy starts silently checking every single thing the man had touched. He checks the glass in the sink, and the counter. He goes to the living room and examines every photo Cage put his hands on. He looks for bugs—covert listening devices. But nothing. Cage just came here to talk.

Several minutes pass before Clarke finally leaves the foyer and yelps at the sight of him.

“You’re still _here_? I thought you left!”

Bellamy stuffs his hands in his pockets, unrepentant. “I wasn’t about to leave him alone with you.”

She scrubs her face. “He could have _seen_ you.”

“I checked everything he touched, by the way,” Bellamy says. “There’s no bugs.”

She watches him warily. “You thought there’d be bugs?”

He smiles grimly. “Call me paranoid.”

She purses her lips in understanding, then furrows her brow and blinks. “What if _we_ used bugs?”

“What?”

“He talks straightforwardly to you in person, doesn’t he?” she says. “What if we put a bug on you and got him to confess everything?”

He’s thought about this a good amount too. But he shakes his head. “That time you heard me talking to him—he had me patted down first.”

Clarke chews on her fingernail, brow furrowing in concentration. Her hair has wisped around her face, frizzy from earlier, and from his hands. He itches to touch it again. He itches to kiss it, the way he last did at her mom’s wedding reception, even though they were just pretending back then.

Something occurs to him.

Clarke’s eyes snap to him, as if she’s just heard him have a revelation. “What is it?”

“There was one time he didn’t pat me down before talking to me,” he says slowly. “It was at your mom’s wedding reception.”

Her eyebrows shoot up. “He didn’t speak to you in code that time?”

“No,” Bellamy says, his heart beating fast, wondering why he’s just now realizing this. Cage had spoken quite frankly that night.

“Why?”

Bellamy doesn’t answer for a minute. He remembers that night so clearly. How overwhelmingly bitter he had been, and how he had barely been able to keep it in check. How Cage seemed to sense it anyway.

“I think he knew,” Bellamy says softly, “That I was giving up.”

Clarke watches him for a beat, her lips parting. “He takes less care when he thinks he’s winning.”

He nods.

A gleam enters her eyes. “So we just have to make him feel like he won.”

—

Bellamy swings by Wells Jaha’s place a few days before the gala. Wells doesn’t answer his door, which usually means he’s out in his garden. So Bellamy goes around the back. His assumption is proven correct; there’s Wells, pulling weeds out of the dirt with his gardening gloves on.

Wells turns and pauses at the sight of Bellamy Blake.

Bellamy was once fairly good friends with Wells—they’d met through Clarke. But their amiable relationship mostly fizzled out when Clarke broke up with him, a distancing effort on both ends. Right now, though, Wells just raises his eyebrows like the last time he swung by to go to the gym with him was just yesterday.

“I could use an extra hand,” he says.

“Buy a damn weed whacker and you wouldn’t,” Bellamy replies. But he drops his bag as he says it, and helps Wells finish weeding the garden. They go inside, and Wells starts boiling water for tea.

While waiting for the tea to steep, Bellamy’s phone pings with a notification. He checks it.

An email invitation from Senator Wallace’s secretary to attend the gala. To celebrate the building of a new library, the senator’s birthday, and the engagement of his son and his beautiful fiancee.

The last bit is bolded, Bellamy is sure, for his benefit. He waits for the impact to hit. It doesn’t.

Instead, it’s satisfaction that hits. He’s being invited to the gala—because Cage wants him to see it. That Clarke and Drew are engaged again. It’s exactly what Bellamy and Clarke had anticipated he would do.

Wells hands him a mug at that moment, and he puts the phone back in his pocket. Once they’re both sipping, and small talk topics have been exhausted, Bellamy reaches into the bag he’s brought. “I need you to do me another favour.”

Wells watches warily. “Okay?”

Bellamy pulls out a purple cap.

“I need you to wear this the next time you hang out with Clarke,” he says. “If anyone asks, it’s yours. It’s always been yours. Can you do that?”

Wells accepts it hesitantly, turning the cap over in his hands. “I feel like you two are just fucking with me now.”

Bellamy can’t help his lips from tugging up a bit. He stands up after finishing his tea, and picks up his bag to leave. “Once this is all over, I’m going to buy you some of that organic, free trade rhubarb tea you like.”

“Once _what_ is all over?” Wells asks.

Bellamy’s smile fades. “ _If_ it’s over.” He turns to go; he shouldn’t spend too much time here, anyway. “And—”

“Don’t tell anyone you were here,” Wells finishes with the air of someone accepting his fate. “I got it.”

—

“Which one should I get?”

“Hmm?” Clarke’s not even paying attention to Drew, even though she’s in the department store with him. Picking out ties. She’s too busy furiously texting Monty and Raven. She looks up momentarily. “Oh, get the red one. He’ll love that one.”

“You think?” He raises the designer tie, looking doubtful. “I’m not sure my dad even wears a lot of red.”

“The colour is beautiful,” Clarke says. It’s bright as fresh blood. “Perfect as a birthday gift.”

Drew considers it for another moment before shrugging and paying for it. “I trust your judgment when it comes to gifts,” he laughs, and tugs her close as the cashier is ringing it up. “You always get the best ones.”

Clarke tries not to be too stiff, especially when he presses a kiss to her mouth. She tries to return it with equal enthusiasm. The task proves difficult because she keeps comparing it to the way Bellamy kisses her.

There’s no comparison.

But this is a necessary task. Two days ago, she’d called Drew. She told him she forgave him, and the engagement was back on. There’s a new ring on her finger.

As they walk out of the store, Drew says, “I know you said it was okay, but I’m… still sorry about what happened.”

“That’s okay,” Clarke says automatically. He squeezes her around the waist.

“It’s just… you know my dad,” he sighs. Clarke does know. Better than he does. “He’s always been like this. So… cutthroat. He scares me at times.”

Clarke stops herself from sarcastically remarking that she’d never noticed. “I get it. It’s okay.”

She checks her phone again. Her last message to Raven was, _Is it done?_

She has to wait ages. She’s sitting in Drew’s car when the response comes in.

_Is my name Raven Reyes?_

—

It’s gala night.

Bellamy rather feels like his shirt collar is strangling him. It’s not because it’s too tight, but because he’s just spotted Clarke and Drew arriving at the event, hand in hand. Even though he knows it’s not real, it’s still a reminder of all the years that it was.

“You might want to stop looking like you’re about to hurl,” Raven comments from beside him. He sends her a bland stare.

“Cute.”

“No, but I’m actually serious right now.” Raven’s his plus-one tonight, wearing a dark red dress with a dangerous neckline that has many people openly gawking. She doesn’t seem to care; frankly, she likely wore it for that exact purpose. “If this whole thing goes badly because you can’t act for five minutes, that’s on you.”

“Noted.”

Raven rolls her eyes at his attitude and swirls her champagne. “Remember, be friendly with Clarke, but not _too_ friendly.”

Bellamy hums in response. He and Clarke had told Raven and Monty the sparsest of details about the whole deal, only because they needed their help to make the bugs they were using. They had mentioned their break up had to do with the Senator blackmailing them, but not much more. It was best, they decided, not to give anyone too much information that might be dangerous to them.

Raven hadn’t been shocked. “Am I supposed to be surprised? Clarke’s phone still has pictures of you lying in her bed.” Monty had just blinked a few times before swivelling back around in his computer desk chair, muttering something about how he didn’t know what he’d expected.

Bellamy watches from afar as Clarke greets people; senators, politicians, family and friends alike, smiling with perfectly practiced ease. He sees her meet with her mother. When Abby glances his way, he looks away.

“Heads up, Clarke and Drew are coming our way,” Raven says lowly. “You better go for the Oscar.”

Bellamy looks up at Clarke when she reaches them. Their eyes connect without much fanfare, and Clarke holds his gaze for an appropriate and comfortable moment before giving Raven a smile. “I’m glad you two could make it.”

She hugs Raven, playing the part. Drew smiles tentatively at Bellamy.

“Congrats on the engagement,” Bellamy says to him. Drew’s smile becomes relieved.

“I’m glad there aren’t any hard feelings.”

“Why would there be?” He shrugs. “Right, Clarke?”

Clarke shrugs too. “Right.”

A server comes by with more champagne, and everyone except Bellamy and Clarke is momentarily distracted with serving themselves. Bellamy seizes the opportunity to study her, to note the diamond earrings she’s wearing, the shimmery eyeshadow, the sleek black dress. She looks beautiful.

When he looks up again at her face, her eyes have dropped, too, and he realizes she’s checking him out in his fitted black dress pants and white collared shirt. Which pleases him a little too much, but in case someone’s paying too much attention, he makes an effort to distract her.

“You look like you’re going to a funeral in that thing,” he tells her lowly, nodding to her dress with a little half-smile.

He expects Clarke to smile back, but curiously, that’s not what happens. She just blinks. And blinks and blinks, like he just gave her the most wonderful compliment and she’s at a loss.

Before Bellamy can even figure out what to do with that, the speakers boom with the sound of someone tapping a mic. Cage Wallace is up on stage, straightening his red tie self-importantly.

“That’s my cue,” Clarke says. She smiles at him and Raven, but it’s slightly off kilter. Then she sets off with Drew to go up to the stage, to join Cage, another elderly man, and several Senators.

Bellamy and Raven hang back for the announcements, which include drawn out speeches from the head librarian of the old library and the mayor thanking Cage for his generosity in supporting children’s literacy with the construction of this new facility. After a few others take turns metaphorically licking Cage’s shoes, the Senator himself returns to the mic.

“And it should be noted that we’re also celebrating the upcoming union of two people very much in love—my son, and his beautiful fiancee Clarke Griffin, who also happens to be the daughter of Senator Abby Griffin, who’s also here tonight. She’s a talented artist and her work is displayed all over this hall tonight, and much of it is being auctioned to benefit the cause, so please give her, and them, a hand.”

Drew takes Clarke’s hand and kisses her on the stage. It’s chaste, but Bellamy still doesn’t want to see it. He forces himself to anyway. He knows he’s likely being watched.

He claps along with everyone else, and when Raven claps extra loud, most likely to piss him off, he doesn’t even say a thing. The crowd disperses again, and Raven says she’s going to get something to eat, so he wanders off into the hall, where there’s less people.

He finds himself joining the throngs of attendees looking at Clarke’s artwork. Most of the pieces she’s donated to the gala are old ones that he’s seen before, beautiful landscapes and abstract paintings. After a few minutes, his eyes get drawn to one large painting hung near the entrance, with several people clustered around it.

He loses his breath when he realizes what it is.

It’s not one he’s seen before, but he instantly knows it anyway. She’s taken some creative liberties with lines and colour, and it’s unlikely to be recognized by anyone else. But there’s no way _he_ could mistake it for anything but a painting of _that_ fence, that faded, chipped fence on the Griffins’ old property that the two of them had repainted as kids years ago.

He and Clarke had painted it white back then, but the Clarke of now has painted this one a kaleidoscope of colours.

“This one’s not up for sale,” he hears a voice near him say. He turns around and sees Clarke, talking to a few of the admirers nearby. But her eyes flit up to him when she speaks.

“What a shame,” the man she’s talking to replies. “I like it.”

“Sorry. I’m never letting this one go.”

“It _is_ quite beautiful,” says Cage Wallace’s voice. He walks over from behind Clarke to clap a hand on her shoulder. Bellamy suppresses the urge to grind his teeth. The man probably has been watching them from the balcony the whole time, and is now swooping in for a better look.

The Senator glances at Bellamy.

“And even better to see you here, Bellamy. It’s nice to have all my son’s childhood friends at his engagement party.” His eyes twinkle with mockery.

Bellamy wills his expression to remain blank. “I agree.”

“Clarke, you don’t mind if I steal him for a minute, do you?” Cage adds. “It’s been a long time since we caught up.” Clarke shrugs as if he means nothing.

“No. Not at all.” She wanders off without a second glance. Cage grips Bellamy’s shoulder and steers him out a side exit—into the cool night air.

Bellamy shakes the man’s hand off his shoulder as soon as they’re out of sight of other people. He pretends like he can’t stand it, when in reality he just doesn’t want anything messing up the wire Monty and Raven planted on him.

Cage lets him. “Don’t think I didn’t see you with her tonight.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?” Bellamy is silent, and Cage goes on lowly, his voice almost friendly. “Were you not having a nice conversation with Clarke earlier? You had this look in your eyes. It was ridiculous. Like you were in love and wanted her to know it.”

“That _is_ ridiculous.”

“It had better be. It wouldn’t be good for you, or for anyone else if it were true. Or do you need a reminder?”

 _Yes_ , Bellamy thinks. For once in his life, he wants Cage to threaten him.

But he doesn’t elaborate on his threats. He just takes a deep breath, inhaling the brisk air. “It’s a perfect night for a walk, isn’t it,” he says.

Bellamy says nothing.

“I saw your plus one tonight. Raven Reyes, right?”

Bellamy, again, chooses to say nothing.

“I told you you wouldn’t have any trouble finding someone new. She’s gorgeous.” He pauses. “Except for that leg of hers. I’ve been wondering, with how she walks, how fast can she _run_ with that thing?”

The insult, and the threat, hang in the air, words carefully chosen to enrage him. Bellamy no longer trusts himself to speak.

When he doesn’t rise to the bait, Cage laughs dryly. “You’re quite the conversationalist, Bellamy. No wonder Clarke keeps trying to talk to you.”

“If you didn’t want us to talk, you shouldn’t have invited me here.”

Cage smiles, that gloating gleam in his eyes again. “I guess you’re right. The thing is, my son insisted. And I love him.”

“Enough to steal his inheritance.”

Cage shrugs.

“I wonder what your mother would’ve thought,” Bellamy adds. Cage looks at him sharply. “About a sick fuck like you taking her money. I mean, she clearly skipped over you in her will. Must’ve been deliberate.”

Cage stiffens. Just slightly, but enough for Bellamy to press on, unable to help himself.

“Didn’t think anyone would sink low enough to rob their own mother’s grave.”

Cage eyes gleam, and Bellamy knows he’s struck a nerve. “Careful how you speak to me, Bellamy. Or your sister might find herself having another unfortunate accident.”

Bellamy’s hands ball into fists.

“Or maybe Clarke’s mother will,” Cage continues, voice low and hard. “I can’t decide what would hurt you more. Clarke, or your sister. Or maybe both.”

The two men glare at each other.

“Why _did_ you invite me here, Cage?” Bellamy asks, breaking the stare to look out into the darkness. The back of this building is the undeveloped zone where the new library is going to be built, so there’s nothing really to look at. But anything’s better than looking at Cage’s face.

“Three main reasons.” Cage joins him in staring off into the night, standing side by side. “First, because I wanted you to see what a nice couple my son and Clarke look like together. Secondly, because I find it entertaining that you’re trying to get me to say something about how I blackmailed you so that the wire you’re wearing will pick it up.”

Bellamy is frozen.

Cage continues, turning to him, the grin on his face sliding away to reveal an expression far more malicious. Darker.

“You didn’t think I would overlook all these possibilities, did you? Bellamy, I thought you knew better than that.” He tsks. “The front doors all our guests walked through tonight when they came to the gala were specially equipped, to fry any bugs that passed through.” He pats the front of Bellamy’s shirt, and then plucks out the bug from where it’s hiding under his collar. “Insecticide.”

Bellamy can’t speak. Cage carelessly throws the dead device aside and continues.

“And lastly, it’s my birthday today, did you know that? Asides from the massive inheritance I’m about to receive from my dead mother, I figured I deserved at least one other gift.”

That’s when Bellamy realizes that they’re not alone after all. Through their walk, they’ve strayed further from the building. And three large shadows are emerging from nowhere, surrounding them, dressed in black.

“Take care of Mr. Blake here, will you?” Cage asks the shadowy figures, sounding bored. “Don’t leave any trace behind. I really just need him to disappear. Permanently.”

They start to advance. Bellamy takes a step forward to Cage, to do what, grab him or something, he doesn’t know. It’s instinct. But the man sidesteps him.

And he brushes off his shoulder. As if Bellamy had actually touched him and left something dirty on his suit jacket.

“We may have had our differences, but I’ll genuinely miss you, Bellamy.” Cage turns away. “You always put up such a fight.”

Then he turns and leaves, and the circle of people around Bellamy begins to tighten. Bile rises to his throat.

Cage didn’t invite him to this gala to gloat. Cage invited him here to kill him.

—

Unbeknownst to Bellamy, Clarke has another agenda at this gala while he gets Cage to spill his guts on a recording device.

She’d seen the guest list; several people from Eligius Construction were invited. And a few names in particular had caught her eye. She’d made sure to become familiar with the visage of those who were involved in the car crash Octavia was in.

As it turns out, Raven spots Shaw before she does.

He’s leaning against the wall, wearing a suit and a dark expression, like he’s being forced to be here. Which he very may well be.

Clarke walks up to him, and he doesn’t really seem to notice, at least until she says, “Miles Ezekiel Shaw.”

His eyes snap to hers. She lifts her chin and looks at him coolly.

“Ex-pilot with a computer science degree. You were on your way to a high profile position, but suddenly dropped your entire career after you piloted a flight which, strangely, held a certain Cage Wallace. Now you work in construction for Eligius, along with some pretty shady ex-cons. Which, honestly, doesn’t really seem to fit the rest of your history.”

She has his attention now, she can see that. He’s stepped away from the wall.

He doesn’t ask who she is. Anyone who’s been paying any attention at this gala knows who she is. Instead he asks, “What do you want?”

“Same as you.” She hopes she’s not wrong about this. It’s a gamble.

He squints at her. “Why do you know so much about me?”

“I made it my business when you hurt someone I know in a car crash.”

He leans back a little, a shadow crossing his expression. “It was an accident. I’m sorry.”

His second sentence rings true; his first doesn’t. “Was it?” She steps closer. “Or were you forced to do it?”

His eyes widen for a second. “Listen, I don’t know why you think—”

She goes all in.

“I don’t know if you heard something incriminating, and you became too dangerous to let get away. I don’t know what his reasons were for making you give up piloting and ruining your life. I _do_ know that you might not have believed his threats at first. But he hurt your family. Am I wrong?”

He doesn’t say anything. He’s been hanging on to her every word, though. She goes on.

“We’re collecting evidence to put him away for good,” she says, still speaking lowly.

He laughs at that, hollowly, as if unable to stop himself. “Like what?”

Raven appears at her side just then, a gleam to her eye.

“Monty just sent us something good,” she says. “Not on Bellamy’s bug. That one’s dead. But listen.” She holds out her phone and presses play.

Clarke grabs one of the earphones and offers the other to Shaw. he takes it slowly, and they both listen. Clarke notices how Zeke stiffens upon hearing Cage’s oily voice: “Careful how you speak to me, Bellamy. Or your sister might have another unfortunate accident. Or maybe Clarke’s mother will. I can’t decide what would hurt you more. Clarke, or your sister. Or maybe both.”

Clarke smiles triumphantly. The bug that she’d planted on Cage’s tie—the one she’d persuaded Drew to get him for his birthday—had worked. Cage hadn’t managed to fry that one, at least.

She looks at Shaw. He looks less convinced.

“You think that’s enough? It’s not. This guy’s got power and influence.”

“My friend will get more.”

“You believe that? Sounds to me from this clip that he’s in trouble.”

“He will. Miles—”

“It’s Zeke,” Shaw says.

“Okay, Zeke, well, don’t you want to help put Cage away? After what he did to you?” Or what she _assumes_ he did from what she can piece together—blackmailed him.

“Guys like him never get put away,” Zeke says.

Raven’s phone starts ringing, but she ignores it in favour of making a disgusted noise, turning to Clarke. “This guy purposely put Octavia in a car accident, Clarke. I don’t know why you think he’d help.”

“He would,” Clarke says, not taking her eyes off Zeke. Because she doesn’t believe he’s a bad person. He’s the Bellamy of the future, if all this goes on too long—the one who’s life and career has been ruined by the Senator and now goes around doing Cage’s dirty work, like purposely putting someone in a car accident, because he’s been told to, and that if he doesn’t, his own family and friends will be at jeopardy. “You would, wouldn’t you?”

Zeke gives Raven a look; she continues to ignore her ringing phone to match his glare. “Theoretically, if you could get me immunity,” he says, “and you had evidence so damning that not even all his money could save him, I’d talk.”

Clarke can hardly dare to believe it. “You’ll come to court? You’ll testify?”

“For that bastard?” Zeke bares his teeth. “I’ll sing like a bird.”

—

Bellamy tries to fight them. He does.

But they’re strong, stronger than him. One of them punches him hard enough to daze him so that they can drag him across the lot. He’s vaguely aware of the sound of a machine being turned on, and then the sound of viscous liquid splashing somewhere.

He cranes his neck around and what he sees makes him go still in horror.

A large, deep rectangular pit before them—for construction. And a concrete mixer, that’s turned on. Cement pouring into the pit.

Bellamy sees his fate in his mind’s eye. Drowned in cement, in this pit that was supposed to be filled anyway. The concrete hardened by morning. His body will never even be found.

“Off you go,” says one of the men, leering in his face. Bellamy slams his head into his. He falls back, and Bellamy scrambles up. He takes off.

Only to have one of the others tackle his legs. He struggles and lands a blind punch, receiving a satisfying grunt of pain in response. Good. If he’s going to die, he’s going to leave evidence of an altercation behind, at the least.

“McCreary!” one of them yells. “Stop playing with him and just throw him in already!”

Before he knows it, he’s being dragged by his leg back to the pit. He desperately tries to resist, scrabbling at the ground with his fingernails to slow the progress. But there’s nothing to hold onto.

—

As they walk away from Zeke, Raven finally answers her phone.

Clarke watches as she goes rigid in the next instant, and then pale.

“What is it?” Clarke asks urgently. “Did Bellamy get something else?”

Raven lowers the phone from her ear. Her voice is a whisper that’s wild enough to become a frantic hiss in the ballroom. “Monty said the last thing he got from Cage’s bug is that he’s getting rid of Bellamy permanently—”

“What?” Clarke shouts it loud enough that several people turn to look at them. She lowers her voice slightly. “Do you mean— _killing_ him?”

Raven, still pale, nods. “That’s what it sounds like.”

She stares in shock for a moment. Neither she nor Bellamy had ever thought Cage would actually make a move to kill Bellamy when he could just hurt someone Bellamy loved. But if he’s truly starting to see Bellamy as a threat to everything he’s built… then of course he would.

Why hadn’t she seen this possibility before?

“Where is he?” Clarke looks around the ballroom. She doesn’t spot either of them right now. Now that the possibility is in her head, she can’t stop every _what if_ from flooding her imagination. She wheels back to Raven and grabs her shoulder. Her voice takes on an edge. “ _Where is he_?”

Raven is starting to look frantic as well. “I don’t know! Monty doesn’t know either. He says Cage is in the building somewhere chatting with your mom and a bunch of other people so he sure as hell isn’t with him!”

That just makes the situation worse. Because if he was trying to kill him, of course Cage would want a solid alibi, which he’ll now have—

Clarke starts off for the exit, where she’d last seen Cage and Bellamy disappear. “I have to find them.”

“Keep your phone on,” Raven says, going in the opposite direction. “I’m calling Monty and seeing if he can pick up anything else.”

Clarke hardly hears. She’s running for the exit. Wherever Cage and Bellamy went on their walk, they can’t have gotten far—right—?

Someone blocks her way.

She looks up. All the way up.

It’s a tall, elderly man. The one that had been on stage with Cage during the announcements. Although she’s hardly ever spoken to him, she knows who he is.

“I have information that may interest you, Clarke,” says Dante Wallace.

—

The sound of the concrete mixer is closer than ever. Bellamy kicks out with his free leg. He doesn’t hit anything the first few times, but the fourth time he manages to strike the knee of the man dragging him—McCreary.

The man swears and his grip loosens. Bellamy tries to yank his leg out of his grip, but just then one of the others steps on his hand.

He cries out in pain, and the boot on his hand twists on the heel, grinding into his hand further. He curses, eyes stinging, and then the same boot hooks under his body and kicks him savagely in the stomach. He gasps for air, temporarily stunned, and then he’s being heaved up.

“No!” He shouts, realizing what’s happening. But too late. He’s now being held back by several arms encircling him firmly, dragging him towards the pit. The sound of the concrete in the pit is horrible. The quality of it has changed since it started pouring; before, it was hitting an empty pit. Now it’s starting to fill.

—

“ _You_ sent the letters?” Clarke repeats. At first, she’d tried to push past Dante, too frantically focused on Bellamy, but then he’d said _that_. Now she’s giving him ten seconds to give her something useful.

Dante nods.

“My son has become unimaginably corrupt, I’m afraid,” he says. “My wife never would have wanted him to get the money and he knows it. But I would never have been able to get the necessary evidence to get to him myself. He watches me too closely. So the task went to you, Clarke. I sent you what I had. Starting with the statement about Abby Griffin he sent to one of his contacts to hold onto, until Bellamy agreed to his terms.”

Clarke shakes her head, overwhelmed with the ramifications of that. “Bellamy suffered because of you! Cage thought _he_ was sending those letters to me!” She’s outraged. “And you only started caring what Cage did when it was about your wife’s money? He’s been hurting people, blackmailing people for years!”

Dante hardly blinks. “I’m sorry, Clarke. He’s my son. I was willing to turn a blind eye until now. But not anymore—”

She moves past him again; she doesn’t have time for this. Bellamy is out there somewhere, and she has to find him and make sure he’s okay. But then Dante adds, “And I think I can help your friend now.”

Her footsteps pause again. “You know where Bellamy is?”

“I know my son,” Dante says. “And because of that, unfortunately, I suspect I know where Mr. Blake is currently meeting his unfortunate end.”

—

“Damn, Mr. Wallace was right,” McCreary cooes in his ear, and chuckles. “You _do_ put up a fight.”

To no avail, apparently. The three of his captors have a good hold on him. He’s at the edge of the pit, his shoes right at the precipice, facing the darkness and the smell of wet concrete.

Then he hears a voice behind them:

“Get off him!”

 _Clarke_.

There’s the ding of metal hitting someone’s head, and one of the arms restraining Bellamy loosens. He presses the advantage, freeing his elbow to smash it behind him.

Meanwhile, he hears Clarke cry out in pain. It fuels him. He manages to break free again.

But just as he’s stepping away from the pit, a hand wraps around his wrist. McCreary, his face twisted into a snarl, nose bloody.

“Mr. Wallace was right about this, too. You’re more trouble than you’re worth.”

Then he flings an off-balance Bellamy into the pit.

—

Clarke sees him go down. At the time, she’s too busy trying to dodge the punches of the woman she’s fighting. Clarke’s managed to get a metal pipe in her hand, and it’s enough to keep her going. But Bellamy—Bellamy just fell into the pit—

The man who pushed him in falls in as well, as if jerked forward. As if Bellamy was determined to bring someone with him when he died.

Clarke screams.

—

McCreary falls into the pit with him. Bellamy gets some satisfaction out of that, at least until they both land with a huge slosh of cement mix.

Bellamy scrambles up as fast as possible. He’s coated completely from neck to toe in the thick stuff. He barely has time to wipe it from his face before McCreary charges him.

Ask Bellamy to hit a target from a distance, and he’d be hard to beat. But even after training with Lincoln, he’s only a decent hand-to-hand fighter. And even then not against guys like McCreary.

So McCreary’s slamming him against the wall in no time, but Bellamy’s also tired of being beat around.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees where the steady, hard stream of concrete is being poured. He lets McCreary punch him across the face, sags a little and then springs forward, pushing his opponent into the stream of thick concrete being poured.

The force of it coming down on his head makes McCreary slip and fall under the stream. Bellamy gives him a good kick to the head just in case, and he’s still. Head lolling against the wall of the pit, above the level of the steadily filling pit.

But Bellamy’s still stuck in here. The level up to his knees. And he can’t hear Clarke up there anymore. Part of him was okay with him dying, but if she does too…

There’s nothing he can do.

He has the sudden, ridiculous thought that right now he’s as useless as a cherry red coloured pencil.

—

Clarke’s not faring too well. The woman she’s fighting is skilled in combat, and the metal pipe flies out of her hands in no time. She’s slammed to the ground. The other man, the last one, hovers over them, looking oddly calm as the woman pins her.

This can’t be the end. Clarke had called the police. They should be almost here by now. She can’t die—she can’t let Bellamy die—only minutes before they arrive on the scene.

“Wait,” Clarke chokes. “Wait. Don’t.”

The woman arches a brow, looking bored.

“Let me kill her, Diyoza,” says the man behind her. The woman sighs.

“You can’t kill a Senator’s daughter, Vinson, you idiot. Or at least, if you do, you have to be smart about it.”

“I can help you,” Clarke gasps, as Diyoza presses her elbow against her windpipe. “I have evidence against—against—Cage—”

The pressure lessens. The woman’s eyes gleam with curiosity.

“You’d say anything right now,” she says slowly.

Clarke’s already seen the glimmer of hope. “I _do_ have evidence!”

“And where is it?”

“I’ll tell you if you turn off that cement mixer.”

Diyoza sighs, long and drawn out. “You know I can’t do that. And unfortunately, I can’t let you keep stalling either.”

“Think about it,” Clarke gasps as pressure is reapplied to her throat. “How could I know about Cage if I…”

Her breath runs out, but she’s said enough. Diyoza’s brow furrows as she considers, even while Clarke’s vision slowly begins to tunnel.

As her senses start to dim, she’s barely aware enough to hear the sirens start and a voice from the darkness yell: “Freeze!”

Diyoza curses. And lets go.

—

The concrete mixer turns off. Bellamy sags against the wall of the pit.

Several minutes later, a rope is thrown down. People in police uniforms are peering down, shouting things at him, but all he sees is one face in particular: Clarke, tears streaking down her cheeks, and all he hears is her voice, asking if he’s okay.

He climbs back up to her.

—

Later, Bellamy’s sitting in the back of an ambulance, a medic shining a light in his eyes, when a group of police walk by with Cage Wallace.

The medic puts away the penlight, saying something about how his concussion is mild, but he’ll need to come to the hospital for overnight observation with all his other injuries. Bellamy hardly hears her. He’s watching Cage.

The Senator is handcuffed, but has an easy smile on his face as camera bulbs flash at the whole scene. Like this is all a big mistake. Yet, Bellamy recognizes the stiffness in the man’s shoulders. He’s _afraid_.

Just as Bellamy thinks this, Cage’s eyes lift, and meet his.

They stare at each other from across the lot for a long moment. Even though the area is swarming with police and ambulances and even a damn fire track, it seems suddenly quiet. The Senator’s smile has become frozen. Bellamy stares back expressionlessly.

While still holding Cage’s gaze, he reaches up and casually brushes off his own shoulder.

—

Clarke is in the hospital along with Bellamy for overnight observation. Her voice is raw from talking to the police for hours, and then to Wells, when Drew finally comes in.

His hair is unkempt; his eyes immediately fall to the engagement ring still on Clarke’s finger. It’s caked in cement because Clarke had hugged Bellamy when he came out of the pit, had knotted her hands in his shirt and told him she was never letting go.

She had, of course. They were separated a minute later, when he had to get washed to get rid of the cement mix.

“So,” Drew says into the silence. Clarke says nothing. She knows he’s heard the full story by now; but she doesn’t know what to say. After all, with the recordings, the attempted murder of Bellamy Blake, and the host of witnesses suddenly coming forward in the last few hours—not just Diyoza and Zeke, but others who have been too afraid up until now— not to mention Dante, Cage Wallace is set to be put away for a very long time.

And then, anguished, he says: “How could you not tell me?”

Clarke looks up then. His eyes are red-rimmed.

“I would have _helped_ you,” he says. “I—I would have helped Bellamy, if I’d known—if I’d known what my father was doing to you both.”

He gets choked up at the end, and Clarke smiles sadly.

“You couldn’t have helped.” And to be entirely honest, she had never been sure that he would have. He was too afraid of his father.

There’s a long silence between them, before Clarke delicately pulls the ring off her finger. He watches silently, and when she holds it out, he extends his hand, palm-up. She drops it in.

“Give it to someone who deserves it,” she tells him. “Someone who wants to be with you as much as you do with them.”

He closes his fingers around it and swallows several times. “I always wondered, you know.”

Clarke tilts her head.

“Why he broke up with you,” he adds. “Bellamy, I mean. I never thought that would happen.” He pauses. “Felt like my lucky day when he did, not gonna lie. But it wasn’t lucky for _you_ , was it?”

She slowly shakes her head, and now it’s time for him to give a sad smile.

“As long as you’re happy, so am I.”

“What about your inheritance?”

Drew waves a hand dismissively. “What was I going to do with the money, anyway? As if I’m not already swimming in it? My granddad’s right—it’s better off going to charity.”

He pats her hand. She thinks she and Drew will be able to be friends again.

There’s a cough from the door, and they both look. It’s Clarke’s mom, returned with coffee from the hospital cafeteria.

Drew nods jerkily at her mom and stands. “Hey, Mrs. Griffin. I was just leaving.”

“Drew,” Abby greets. Not coldly, but not exactly with the warmth that she would have had even yesterday.

Once Drew leaves, Abby sits next to Clarke and hands her a coffee. She waits a minute before asking, “Clarke, did you ever love Drew?”

The words hang in the air. Clarke knows, in the time after her official break up with Bellamy, Abby had quite fawned over Drew, too. After all, the children of two senators falling in love was a romance for the books.

“Yes,” Clarke says honestly, the truth dawning on her as she says it, “As a friend.”

Abby is silent for a long time. “Do you still love Bellamy?”

“Yes.”

A simple answer, but this time with no label added. It can’t take one.

Abby covers her eyes with one hand. “I said awful things about him after you told me he broke up with you.”

Clarke nearly smiles at the guilty note in her voice. “So did I. Neither of us knew.”

“Still. I just went and apologized to him.”

“Oh.” She’s sure Bellamy refused all the apologies.

“I told him I resented him,” Abby says, “mostly because you kept the break up a secret from me for two years. Which meant it was hurting you enough to pretend it never happened.”

A lump grows in Clarke’s throat at the remembrance of a time when she had used to pretend Bellamy was still her boyfriend.

“I—I just didn’t want to disappoint you,” she confesses. “You liked him.”

“Well, I’ve decided I definitely like him,” Abby says with a wry smile. “But I want you to remember something I said back then, and what I want you to remember now.” She looks meaningfully at the hand Drew’s engagement ring was on a few minutes ago.

“It doesn’t matter whether I like who you’re with. I won’t be happy unless _you_ love them. Full stop.”

—

Later, Clarke shuffles down the hall to say hello to Bellamy. She’s been told they’ve finished bandaging him. Parts of his skin were swollen or blistered or otherwise irritated from the concrete, so they had to treat it.

He’s in a room by himself, which she knows because she visited him already once tonight. His bed is by the window and hidden from view from a curtain. She’s a few steps into the room when she hears Octavia’s voice from behind that curtain.

“... does it hurt?”

Clarke hangs back to the door, out of sight.

“No,” Bellamy says.

There’s a rustling, like his sister is sitting down. “I heard everything. It’s all over the news.”

Bellamy coughs. “Yeah.” Clarke considers leaving, giving the siblings a moment to themselves, but then he adds, “Then you know what happened to you… the accident… that’s on me.”

Clarke crosses her arms in wait.

Once upon a time, Octavia blamed Bellamy for things less than this. She blamed him for things out of his control and he shouldered it, because they had no idea how else to relate to each other. The Octavia of old would happily let him take the blame for this too.

“It’s not your fault,” the Octavia of new says after a pause. “It was Cage.”

Another silence. Clarke can only imagine the way Bellamy is reacting; blinking a few times, surprised.

There’s another rustle.

“Here,” Octavia says abruptly, and maybe—if Clarke isn’t imagining it—a little awkwardly. “I brought you a book from home to read.”

“ _Metamorphoses_ ,” Bellamy reads off the cover. His voice is soft. “Thanks, O.”

This time, when the silence falls, Clarke turns and leaves the room.

 

—

 

TWO WEEKS LATER

Clarke is standing on a balcony, her phone sandwiched between her ear and her shoulder as she stirs coffee. “Okay. Great. Thanks for the update, Miller.” She sets the mug gingerly on the railing to end the phone call, but not before she hears a voice from behind her.

“What’re you calling Miller this early for?”

She turns to find Bellamy, yawning into his fist. His hair is even more tousled than usual from sleep, the skin of his forearms lit golden from the morning sun, and he’s wearing the worn tee and shorts he’d gone to bed last night in—or rather, he’s put them back on.

She tugs down the hem of her overly long shirt that she’d taken from his closet and turns back, pretending to examine the skyline and debating how to answer his question.

Once the initial hubbub was over, Jasper had suggested that they throw a _CAGE WALLACE IS CANCELLED!_ party, which Bellamy promptly vetoed. Instead, he and Clarke had opted for something else. Clarke had gotten in his car and they’d driven several hours upstate—to Bellamy’s city, where he’s been working the past few years. It was supposed to be a break from it all.

However, Clarke’s still been getting updates from Miller and a few others on how things are unfolding. Not only is Cage Wallace expelled from Senate, but he’s now officially on trial for attempted murder as well as a dozen other charges. The lawyers are confident he’s going away for a long, long time.

But she also knows Bellamy doesn’t really want to talk about that. Cage has already stolen years of his life; and he’ll steal more time from them when they have to be present at court proceedings later. He doesn’t need to take today, too.

“We were making fun of you,” Clarke says teasingly, turning back to look at him. Bellamy studies her under his long lashes. His eyes grow solemn, and she knows that he gets it. That the call was something about _that_.

But after a moment, he smiles anyway and draws closer to wrap his hands around her waist. He plays into the joke. “Yeah?” His hands start roving up and down her sides, affectionately feeling her up.

She pulls a piece of knowledge Miller had once told her while he was drunk, a while ago. “Miller says that once when you were roommates in college,” her head falls forward as he begins to mouth at the back of her neck, “your jacket got a huge rip in it, and even though you had another one, you just slapped duct tape on it and walked out into the pouring rain. And came back with all your clothes wet.”

“ _Miller_ is a goddamn gossip,” he mumbles against her hair. She laughs and leans back into his body.

“So it’s true.”

“Real brave of him, telling you this stuff when he knows how much I remember about the shit _he_ did.” He presses a last kiss against the back of her head and steps back a little, giving her space. Disappointing.

She picks up her coffee and turns around to lean against the railing and face him. She raises an eyebrow and takes a sip. “I’m waiting.”

Despite the fact that he finished touching her a moment ago, he braces his hands on the railing on either side of her body, and leans in to bump her nose with his. “Come on, Clarke. Do you _really_ want to talk about Miller?”

Before she can answer, another voice floats on over from the adjacent balcony.

“See, _now_ I finally understand.”

Clarke glances over, to see a large, burly man with long hair poking his head out onto his own balcony.

“That’d be a first for you,” Bellamy calls back, without looking away from Clarke. She looks at him, noting the sparkle in his eye. _Roan_ , he mouths silently at her, and she understands. The gym teacher. Also, his neighbour.

(She’s been busy, catching up on Bellamy’s life.)

“You never told me _Clarke Griffin_ was your ex,” Roan continues, and Clarke looks back to find the man’s eyebrows raised at her. “I’ve got two celebrities in the apartment next to me.”

Clarke grimaces. “We didn’t want to be.”

“I figured,” Roan says. Bellamy, apparently bored with the whole conversation, has started mouthing at Clarke’s neck again, she suspects in order to make Roan uncomfortable enough to leave, but instead he just leans against his own railing. He watches Bellamy for a second before saying, “How’s your sister doing?”

Bellamy doesn’t reply. Clarke answers for him. “She’s fine.”

Roan’s lips tick up into a smile, and he speaks again to Clarke, casually. “Whenever he manages to get out of your shirt, can you tell him that we’re glad he’s back?” She nods, and he pushes off the railing to go back into his apartment.

Bellamy pulls away just in time to call, “See you at work.”

Roan’s door slides shut a moment later. Clarke looks at Bellamy again, fondly noting how prominent his freckles have become in the sun. His beautiful, softly shaped brown eyes. The dark hair that curls around his ears, and the hollow of his throat when he swallows.

Without really thinking about it, she sets down her coffee on the railing again, and leans forward the small distance between them to kiss him. She wraps one arm around his neck, the other hand sliding up his jaw to feel it work when he kisses her back in earnest. They make out like that lazily, oh so casually out in the open on this sunshiney balcony, where anybody could see them, and they no longer have to care.

“We should go get ready,” he rasps when they pull away. He sounds reluctant about it.

Clarke understands the sentiment, but she’s been looking forward to today in particular. She arches a brow, and nods to the sliding glass door behind him. “After you.”

—

“You need to wash your hands really well,” Clarke advises.

One of the kids sticks out their hands, brow furrowed. “But I _did_!”

“You also need to scrub for a really long time.”

Bellamy hangs back and watches the lesson. He hadn’t actually been planning to bring Clarke to his place of work. But she’d asked and asked and _asked_. So he’d inquired through the school district, and gotten permission for her to come in as a doctor and deliver a lesson about germs to his second-graders.

He’s missed these kids this past month, too, he realizes as they jump around Clarke, holding out their hands to be passed under the blacklight she’s holding. She’s applied some sort of special lotion—a metaphor for germs—to their hands that can only be seen under this light, and they’ve all been tasked with trying to wash their hands as well as possible and then see how much of it they were actually able to get rid of.

“I’m _tired_ of washing,” proclaims one of the kids, Madi. She’s usually quite reserved, but somehow around Clarke she’s opened up a bit. She fans herself. “I’m sweating!”

Clarke’s mouth twitches and she turns the classroom light back on. “It does take some work.”

With the activity over, the kids return to the bacteria colouring sheets Clarke had brought from her health authority.

As he wanders around the tables, making sure they’re all doing alright, he hears Aiden say, “What’s that?”

Bellamy turns to see him pointing at Clarke’s neck. He squints and sees it.

It’s a hickey. A red one on the side of her neck, exposed when she tossed her hair back. But Clarke doesn’t miss a beat. “A mosquito bite. Annoying little things, aren’t they?”

The kids laugh. Bellamy says, “I wonder where else it bit you.”

She looks at him and her mouth twitches. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe. Everywhere.”

“That right?”

“I got eaten _alive_ , Mr. Blake.”

“Sounds unpleasant.”

She presses her lips together, eyes sparkling. “Hmm," she offers.

“You should put on some bug spray, Dr. Griffin,” Madi says solemnly.

Charlotte nods. “That should get rid of them. Or wear long sleeves when you go into the woods.”

Bellamy watches colour flush up Clarke’s neck as the other kids chime in with serious suggestions. After a minute of letting her suffer, he jumps in.

“She’ll take your advice,” he says. “Now let’s get back to colouring.”

The class gives him a collective stink-eye for interrupting their dialogue. He adds, “And if you’re good, I’ll give out those poppy red pencils I bought.”

The class erupts in cheers and settles back into their seats. So easily swayed.

He watches Clarke out of the corner of his eye as he supervises. She sits at the table next to some of the kids, and grabs a colouring sheet of her own. Some of the kids start peering over at her colouring, eyes growing wider with every brisk, casually confident stroke of her pencil.

“That’s really nice, Dr. Griffin!” says Madi.

“Thanks. I’m an artist.”

Her eyes bug out. “You’re a doctor _and_ an artist?”

“You can be both,” Clarke says. “Don’t let anyone tell you different. You can be anything and everything you want to be.”

An overwhelming fondness comes over him as he watches Clarke attempt to teach his second-graders her shading technique. It’s strange to think that not too long ago—the last time he was in this classroom—he was trying to move on with his life without his best friend. He was trying to forget her.

But he would have failed; he had known that then, and he knows it now. There’s no forgetting Clarke Griffin. There’s no forgetting the woman with the mischievous blue eyes, the mind so sharp you might overlook her big heart. There’s no forgetting the girl that came out to help him repaint a fence in the hot afternoon sun.

But even so, he never would have guessed that he would ever be so lucky to have her back in his life. It’s almost hard to believe that she’s here, that he has her all to himself today. This afternoon, after school is over, he’s taking her on a hike on some of the trails around here. He’s already looking forward to how she’ll tease him for the abundance of supplies he’ll bring for a short day trip.

He’s looking forward to everything they will have, now that they have the choice.

He doesn’t realize his eyes are wet until Clarke actually does looks up; her face softens at the sight of him. He blinks back his tears fiercely. Not because he doesn’t want to cry in front of her, but because he doesn’t want to cry in front of the kids.

Clarke gets up anyway, excusing herself from the kids and walking over to him. She stands at his side, overlooking the class.

“Bellamy.” Her voice is gentle.

His name, said in her husky voice, almost does him in. He wipes under his eye brusquely with the palm of his hand. “Clarke, I—”

“I know,” she says. And if he’s not imagining it, she sounds a bit teary suddenly as well. She reaches out and pats him on the shoulder, outwardly the most professional of gestures. But she leaves her hand there for longer than necessary. “Me too.”

He falls silent. Carefully, he puts his hand on the small of her back. Just for a second. Her shoulders relax at his touch.

Both of them let their hands drop at the same moment, and Clarke changes the subject. “You didn’t have to introduce me as Dr. Griffin to them, you know. Miss Griffin would have been fine.”

“You _are_ a doctor.”

She arches a brow. “So are you.”

That’s true, albeit a different kind. Sometimes he forgets he has a PhD. While the process of getting it had been enjoyable, the thing is damn useless these days, except for fun facts at dinner parties.

“You know, once this is all over…” Clarke trails carefully, indirectly bringing up Cage Wallace for the first time today, “you can do whatever you want. You can try for a career in academia again—”

“It’s alright, Clarke.”

“You don’t have to give it up, Bellamy. Cage isn’t here anymore to try to ruin your life.”

“I know,” he says, and feels a little freer for saying it. “And I’ll think about it. But for now I’m fine where I am.”

It rings true. It feels right, saying it. He hadn’t exactly planned to end up here, but now that he is, he finds that he likes it.

Clarke nods silently. Bellamy has a sudden thought.

“Am I better as a professor than as a schoolteacher?”

He says it lightly, but he can’t deny that he’s also genuinely wondering it.

As always, Clarke still hears the serious question underneath. “You’re best when you’re happy. Full stop.” She regards him affectionately. “For what it’s worth, I think you make an _amazing_ teacher.”

His cheeks warm from the way she’s looking at him. He runs a hand through his hair, haphazardly. “You haven’t seen anything yet,” he says, and pulls open the drawer of his desk, to pull out a specially ordered pack of poppy red coloured pencils. He waves them in her face. “Watch this.”

—

Clarke eventually goes to sit down with another group of kids. The room has grown a little more rowdy in the past twenty minutes, but Bellamy appears to be fine with it. Besides, it allows her the grace of having no one else hear when Aiden says, “Is Mr. Blake your boyfriend?”

The point of her blue pencil breaks on the paper. She suppresses a curse and hurriedly grabs the pencil sharpener.

“Why would you think that?”

Aiden regards her seriously. “You look at him like he looks at his copy of _The Iliad_.”

Trust Bellamy to teach his second-graders about classics.

“Tell us the truth,” Madi whispers from beside Aiden when she hesitates. “Is he?”

Clarke glances back at Bellamy. He’s sitting cross-legged on the other side of the room, counting out red coloured pencils with avid concentration for the line-up of eager kids in front of him.

She looks back at Aiden and Madi. Bellamy wouldn’t want her to talk about their relationship, she knows. “He’s my good friend.”

“Really?”

Clarke thinks back to last night and amends, “My very, very good friend.”

The kids seem to accept this, and go back to colouring. She looks back at Bellamy. His curly hair half shades over his expression, but if she squints she can still see the freckles she’d peppered kisses over this morning. While she watches, he runs one hand over his mouth and yawns, his fingers splayed, the unadorned ring finger tapping against his jaw.

Clarke enjoys this, watching him when he’s not paying attention, while she’s still got the chance to do it. Later this week, she has to take the drive back downstate for work. And because Bellamy has been on leave for a while, and she’s got a busy schedule for the next week or two, they might not see each other again until the trial officially starts.

She had figured their lives wouldn’t fit neatly together right away. The fence between them, while mended, is still chipped and faded from their years apart. But that’s okay.

Together, they will repaint.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end... Special thanks to MJ (tumblr: wellamyblake) and Sjaan (readymachine) for beta reading; they not only pick up typos and inconsistencies, but often some truly random stuff i never would’ve imagined would be a problem. example: i had initially called coloured pencils “pencil crayons” because that’s what I grew up knowing them as? THESE binches were so confused… so I changed it to a term that would hopefully be understood wherever you live. that's the benefit of having betas, folks. along with when they roast you in the google doc.
> 
> as always: if you have a moment, i truly love getting comments (of any length!). 
> 
> in any case, thank you for reading. I very much hope you enjoyed the story.
> 
> @wellsjahasghost on tumblr


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